


A Story for Every Corner

by thepinupchemist



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alpha Castiel, Alpha Sam, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Alternate Universe - Bed & Breakfast, Anal Sex, Bed & Breakfast, Dysfunctional Family, Families of Choice, Family, Family Feels, Growing Up, Implied Mpreg, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Mates, Mating, Mating Bond, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mpreg, Omega Dean, Omega Gabriel, Omega Verse, On the Run, Running Away, Sexism, Sexual Content, Sexual Tension, Teen Angst, Teenagers, True Mates, bitter millenial castiel, brief scene with dubcon oral, implied past rape (gabriel), not with cas tho, only brief mpreg but it's def there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-21
Updated: 2014-11-21
Packaged: 2018-02-26 11:20:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2650172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepinupchemist/pseuds/thepinupchemist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean's a late bloomer. When he presents as an omega, everyone is surprised, and everything changes. Only a few months into omegahood, Dean decides to book it. A couple of truck rides and a state later, Dean's in Apple Springs, Colorado at a bed & breakfast called The Snoozing Squirrel. The off-beat omega owner is just the beginning.</p>
<p>The hard part is the offbeat brother of the offbeat omega, an alpha named Castiel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Story for Every Corner

**Author's Note:**

> HELLO yes I do exist. I've been working on this very, very slowly but surely and now that it's complete I am hoping to edge my way back into writing fic (which means updates on the WIPs). Long story veeerrry short: my parents are getting divorced, my depression took a nosedive and I couldn't make myself do anything but get through the days. I do apologize for the wait for updates, but my mental health just wasn't up to par.

**Sountrack: Two Fingers – Jake Bugg**

**_A Story for Every Corner_ **

** Part I **

“Can I, um – May I use the restroom?” Dean rushedly asks. His legs are shaking and his stomach turns with uncomfortable flips. He can tell from the way that Ms. Mills’ nostrils flare that she can smell his heat on him. Dean hates the ways her eyes soften at him. He hates that he can feel the back of his English class staring at him and that everyone can just _tell_ what’s going on.

Dean hates being an omega, and he’s only been an omega for three months. He hates that dad won’t let him on suppressants and that his word as alpha is final. He hates that Sam doesn’t look at him like a big brother anymore, that he thinks Dean is some helpless prick that needs a collar around his neck and lead to know where the fuck to go and what to do.

Ms. Mills presses the bathroom pass into Dean’s hand and says, “Take as long as you need. Maybe call home.”

Dean affords this a jerky nod before he shoves his way out of the classroom and darts down the hallway in quick strides. It’s hard to walk fast when he’s busy trying to press his legs together so he doesn’t leak slick all over his jeans. Dean doesn’t like when people can smell the omega on him, but it’s worse if they see it.

Dad says he should drop out of school anyway. Dad says that omegas don’t need to worry about college. Dean is terrible at school and he hates being here, but when his dad’s words bounce off the walls of his skull and echo in his mind, he grits his teeth and goes to school anyway. It wouldn’t matter that he wanted to leave high school before he presented as an omega. Because he’s an omega _now_ , every decision that he makes is _because he’s an omega_.

Relief bursts through Dean when he slams his way into the downstairs guys’ bathroom, restricting himself to the omega side of the room. The restroom is blessedly empty. Dean clutches the English bathroom pass to his chest and locks himself into the stall furthest from the door. There, he hangs the pass on the coat hook on the inside of the stall door, rips his pants down, and sits on the toilet. He keeps sitting for a long time, just shaking and trying to get ahold of himself. But – it’s hard. It’s hard to keep himself under control when it feels like his being slow-roasted over an open fire and that there’s no way to seek relief.

When Dean manages to calm himself down long enough to rub two brain cells together, he unravels a long spool of toilet paper around his hand. Dean reaches back behind himself and mops up the flood of slick between his asscheeks and thighs as best he can with the flimsy material. He lets the soggy wad of paper drop into the toilet bowl and reaches for a fresh wad to finish the job.

Christ, he smells so strong that his own scent is making him woozy.

In sex ed his teacher said that omega heats are easier to deal with when omegas are older. Dean hopes that’s true, because if this is how it’s gonna be for three days out of every month for the rest of his life, Dean’ll rip his anatomy out himself.

Dean’s leg bounces up and down.

This is fucking stupid. Three months ago he didn’t think he’d ever be here – sitting with his pants around his ankles , trying his best to wipe up his own slick and not to cry while he does it because everything hurts and it’s so hot.

He wants nothing less than to call his dad to come pick him up, but what other choice does he have? The school nurse would just give him one of those things to stick in his boxers that’s little more than a glorified diaper to soak up the slick and call his dad anyways. And Dean wouldn’t be allowed to go back to class even if he did wear a padded thingie in his shorts because he smells like an alpha buffet and he knows it.

And the school rules say that omegas have to be at home for the entire duration of their heat, just like they can’t wear anything that shows their shoulders or shorts too short even if it’s summer and ninety fucking degrees outside. The _alphas_ can’t get distracted from their schoolwork.

Dean’s hands tremble when he pulls his dad’s contact up on his phone and presses it against his ear.

“Dean, what are you doing calling me during school?” is what his dad answers the phone with.

“I-I,” stammers Dean, and he lowers his voice to whisper, “Sorry, sir. I need you to pick me up. Please.”

“Why in the hell –” dad starts.

Dean blurts, “I’m in heat, dad, okay? I’m not allowed to be at school like this anyway.”

John Winchester lets out a long-suffering sigh on the other end of the phone. Dean can hear the eye-roll in his voice when he says, “Fine. Give me a half hour. But let me remind you that I told you that you shouldn’t be in school anyway. Focus on yourself and finding a nice alpha.”

“I don’t want a nice alpha,” Dean snips.

John groans, “I’m not gonna get into this over the phone. You’re gonna get an alpha whether you want one or not, so better to have a decent alpha than a jackass. I’m hanging up. Go to the nurse. She’ll give you – y’know – omega stuff.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Goodbye, Dean.”

His dad hangs up first. Dean stares at the word “Dad” flashing on the screen of his phone. Anger seeps up into him from his feet up. It didn’t used to be like this. His dad used to be proud. Now Dean’s just an inconvenience.

Dean gathers a giant wad of toilet paper and stuffs it in his boxers before he pulls his jeans back up and buttons the fly. It’s not comfortable, but it’s better than leaking everywhere. Like hell he’s going to the nurse to ask for a pad or whatever the fuck.

Just as Dean pulls the restroom pass off of the hook and unlocks the stall door, the door to the bathroom opens and the sound of guys laughing echoes off the walls. With his senses so heightened, Dean immediately identifies them as alphas. Three of them.

Maybe they’re _nice_ alphas.

“Jesus Christ,” one of them says, “It smells like a fuckin’ heat tank in here.”

Dean turns to lock himself back into the bathroom stall, but he fumbles and drops the bathroom pass. The slab of wood clatters against the floor, and it’s done. Three alphas turn the corner into the omega side of the guys’ room and leer at him.

“Heya, sweetheart,” says one of them – a senior. He has a fancy name, Alastair or something. Even before Dean presented the guy gave him the creeps.

“Leave me alone,” spits Dean.

“I’d rather do this,” Alastair says, and crowds Dean against the wall. He’s so close that Dean can smell everything on him, the bitterness of testosterone and the tang of dominance and all those ugly smells he’s come to recognize as reality for him, now.

“Back the fuck off,” Dean snaps, and shoves Alastair back with both hands. He stumbles, surprised at Deans’ strength, but the surprise lasts only an instant before he narrows his eyes and fury radiates off of him.

“You really think you’re something, don’t you? You think you’re too good for me?”

Against his better judgment, Dean blurts, “I know I’m too good for you, asshat. You may as well just go home and fuck your fleshlight, ‘cause that’s all you’re ever gonna get from an omega.”

Fury evolves to rage. Everything happens so fast. Alastair and one of his friends slam Dean up against the wall. Dean’s skull bounces against the drywall and he curses, teeth sinking down into his tongue until he tastes blood. He tries to jerk his shoulder out of Alastair’s grip, but that just makes the dude tighten his fingers, digging his nails into Dean’s skin.

“You think so?” Alastair says, his breath hot against Dean’s ear, “’Cause I bet you anything that you’d do anything for a knot right now.” His hand slides down and gropes at the crotch of Dean’s jeans. And naturally, his body betrays him. His dick hardens under the touch and he wants to cry because he doesn’t want this Alastair guy’s hands on him, doesn’t want his knot, doesn’t want anything to do with him.

“That’s what I thought,” Alastair says against Dean’s neck. He licks a hot, wet stripe up the side of Dean’s throat and Dean whines, trying again without success to throw them off of him.

The only thing he’s got left is something that makes shame burn in his face and all the way down to his feet. He takes in a shuddering breath and shouts at the top of his lungs, “HELP! SOMEBODY HELP.”

“Shut up,” Alastair grits out, moving his hand from Dean’s crotch to clamp it over his mouth.

Dean doesn’t stop fighting, but it’s hard to fight when there are three of the fuckers and he’s only one guy. Something in him sags, and he feels the inevitability of what’s happening as his jeans are worked open and a hand reaches inside his underwear.

“Just what in the hell is going on here?”

Alastair and his cronies jump away from Dean. At the bathroom entrance stands Coach Jim, arms folded over his chest. He barks out, “You three get the hell to class or so help me God I will give you detention for a month.” They don’t hesitate, just run off.

“And you,” Coach Jim says, “You called you parents?”

“Yeah,” Dean mutters, “My dad.”

“Good. You go wait at the attendance office where you’ll be safe.”

“You mean you’re not gonna do anything?” Dean asks, “That guy was about to – about to –” The word _rape_ rests on his tongue but catches and retreats down his throat.

“You know as well as I do that there’s nothing we can do,” Coach Jim says, “I mean, I could take you up to the office to write up an incident report, but there’s not a lick of good that’ll do. I’m sorry, but it is what it is. For now, you just get to the office and wait for your dad.”

Dean’s gut twists and he thinks that he might throw up. Instead, he manages a weak, “Okay,” and shuffles from the bathroom, leaving the restroom pass sitting on the ground and his fly undone.

**X**

Dean argues with his dad in the car. Then he argues with his dad at home. They shout at each other until Dean slams his bedroom door shut and locks it behind him, sinking to the carpet. He presses his face into his knees, still quaking from unsatisfied heat and fear, but he can’t tell dad that. He can’t be afraid of anything. That makes him weak, and dad can’t stand weakness.

When Sammy comes home from school, he knocks on Dean’s door. He asks, “Dean, are you okay?”

Sam’s twelve. He shouldn’t need to know about Dean’s reality as an omega. Dean doesn’t want him to know. But if Sam presents omega like him…

Dean doesn’t think that’ll happen. Sammy’s too big for that now. Sure, he’s skinny as a string bean but he’s tall, taller than Dean, with huge hands and feet. Dean has always been big, but always _pretty_ too, or so his dad says. Dad never once said before Dean presented that he thought he would be an omega, but after the presentation, dad said he knew it all along. Dean’s eyelashes were too long, eyes too big, lips too plush to be an alpha.

“I’m fine,” Dean lies.

On the other side of the door, Dean can hear Sam sigh.

“You can talk to me,” insists Sam.

“No,” Dean tells him, “Not about this.”

“I know how heats work,” Sam irritably says. Dean can picture the face he’s making, nose all scrunched up and his eyes disbelieving.  When Dean doesn’t respond to this, Sam goes on, “I can smell you, dummy. I’m not stupid.”

“I never said you were,” Dean bites out, “Just leave me alone.”

“Dean,” Sam says, sounding desperate, “Please. I can help. You can talk to me, or, um. I could go to the drugstore and get you one of those fake knot things. Or I can bring you some juice. You need vitamins and you need to hydrate. That’s what my teachers say.”

“That’s enough, Sam,” comes the voice of Dean’s father, “Your brother’s throwing a bitch-fit about God-knows-what. You leave him be and start in on your homework, you hear me?”

Dean’s gut churns at the sound of his father’s voice. His dad, the man Dean thought was a hero – the alpha Dean wanted to grow up to be.

“But dad –” Sam protests.

“Don’t you ‘but, dad’ me, Samuel,” John snaps.

There’s resignation in Sam’s voice when he replies, “Yes, sir.” Dean hears Sam shifting off of the bedroom door and marching dutifully to his bedroom across the hall. There’s the sound of a door closing, and then of Dean’s dad retreating back downstairs.

A beat later, Dean’s cell vibrates in the pocket of his jeans.

_3:27 Sammy: Sorry. Just wanted to help._

Dean can’t help but feel guilty at that, so he texts back _dont worry about it._

_3:28 Sammy: If you need me, text me._

Sam knows too much for a twelve year old kid.

Dean waits against the door for several minutes, panting and squeezing his legs together against the discomfort of flowing slick. Aw, crap – he forgot that he never actually got one of those omega pad thingies, and that he’s been sitting here relying on a wad of toilet paper shoved down his pants to soak up what it can. He stands up upon the realization and peels his jeans off of his legs. Sure enough, he leaked through. When Dean pulls down his underwear he grabs the wet wad of toilet paper and shoves it to the bottom of his wastebasket, praying that the smell of Cheetos and discarded Hot Pocket wrappers will cover some of the scent.

It still takes Dean twenty more minutes of fire ants under his skin and leaking onto his Star Wars sheets before he caves in and stumbles to his closet to pull out the fake knot his dad pretty much threw at him when he presented. It’s pink and squishy around the battery pack. Just the sight of the thing makes Dean red in the face.

But he uses it, because he hurts everywhere and he won’t feel better until he does. He strains his arm to reach behind himself and slip it into himself, riding back on it. And it’s good, so freaking good. He smothers a moan in his pillow and takes it in deeper. He’s needed this for hours and hours and he can’t believe he denied himself for so long.

It takes Dean only three minutes to come all over his bed. When he finishes he collapses in the mess, too spent to care that he’s sticky with sweat and slick and come.

Dean doesn’t wake until much later, when it’s dark outside his bedroom window. He startles when there’s a knock at his door.

“Dean,” says Sam’s voice, in a desperate tone, like he’s been saying _Dean_ over and over again.

“What?”

“It’s dinner time. I made you a tuna sandwich.”

Dean’s heart splinters under his ribs. Sammy isn’t supposed to take care of him, it’s supposed to be the other way around. Dean’s the big brother. He’s supposed to look out for Sam and make sure he’s safe and never hungry and always loved. The guilt that swings into him is almost as painful as the boiling of his blood.

“Just a second,” Dean at last rasps. Even if he doesn’t want to leave his room, even if he doesn’t feel like eating because his stomach hurts, he knows he has to. Not really for himself, but because Sam is trying to do something nice.

Dean rolls off of his bed, sheets now stiff from come and slick. He smells gross, but he doesn’t care. He’s too tired and too hot. Instead of trying to wipe himself off, Dean struggles into a pair of sweatpants and calls it good. Sam wrinkles his nose when Dean emerges, but he doesn’t comment. Kid knows better than to do that.

Downstairs, Sam pulls a chair out for Dean at the kitchen table. A snitty remark sits in Dean’s mouth, but he holds it back. He doesn’t need to be taken care of, but Sam’s just doing his best. Patiently, Dean watches and waits while Sam sets a plate down with a sandwich and some carrot sticks on it.

Sam leers with owl-eyes and says, voice prim, “Eat the carrots too. You need healthy stuff when you’re in heat. I’m gonna get some juice too and you’re gonna drink it or…or I’m gonna fart on your pillow.”

Dean rolls his eyes. Yeah, he’d put good money on Sam being an alpha. Sure, he’s taking care of Dean and omegas are supposed to be best at taking care of people, but he’s being a bossy little shit about it, and that’s _so_ an alpha thing. He doesn’t argue, though, just eats the sandwich and carrot sticks and washes it down with the orange juice, drinking every last drop.

Sam rewards this with a nod of approval and then says, “You should take a shower, dude. You smell rank.”

“Shut up,” Dean laughs, and shoves at Sam’s arm.

It figures that the moment of peace would end – John enters the kitchen from the living room, empty beer bottle in his grip, and says, “Dean, you get back upstairs. You’re stinkin’ the whole damn house up.”

“I was just –”

“Don’t argue with me, boy. I am the alpha here and you are the omega. You listen to me and get upstairs. That’s my last word on it.”

“No!” exclaims Dean, and throws his chair back when he stands, “I’m not gonna listen just ‘cause you’re an alpha and I’m an omega. And it’s not my fault I smell! Like I would _choose_ to have heats. This sucks, and you’re making it worse. Just stop it.”

“Do not speak to me in that tone of voice,” John says, “You need to learn where your place is, Dean. I was doing you a favor by letting you stay in school but this is the last straw. I’m withdrawing you from your classes and you are going to get an omega-appropriate job, and _then_ you will be getting yourself a mate. It’s clear to me that you need an alpha to keep a better eye on you than I have time to.”

For a moment, Dean is rendered speechless. He clenches his hands into fists, anger overriding the need brought on by his heat. He shouts, “I don’t need an alpha. I don’t need you! You – you never did this before I presented. I worked just fine then and I work just fine now. You’re the one that’s fucked up. School’s fucked up. I’m not doing anything wrong.”

His dad takes a step forward. Dean jumps back.

“Were you about to hit me?” he demands.

“Dean, calm down,” says his dad, “This is just your heat talking.”

“It is not,” Dean snaps back.

“You will treat me with respect,” roars John, “I am your father and I am your alpha. Go to your room right now.”

“No,” says Dean.

Dad’s hand shoots out and grips Dean’s arm like a vice. It hurts. Dean tries to squirm away, but John just squeezes harder. He yanks Dean forward and tugs him up the stairs. Dean pushes and pulls but it isn’t any use. His dad’s bigger and stronger than he is, augmented by his alpha inclination toward physical fitness.

John doesn’t say a damn word when he tosses Dean into his bedroom. His dad slams the door, and a distinct clicking sound comes, the sound of Dean being locked into his bedroom.

“Dad!” Dean hoarsely cries out. He bangs on the door and jiggles the knob, but it’s no use.

Then dad orders, all alpha, “You will stay in your room for the rest of your heat. When it passes, we’re finding you a job. And that is that, Dean Michael.”

Dean stumbles onto his bed and lies there shaking. He doesn’t know how long he stays there. The heat doesn’t help. It makes him fuzzy and feverish –

But it’s not enough to prevent Dean from realizing that he can’t stay here. He has to get out. He can’t let his life get snatched out of his hands and presented, giftwrapped, to some control-freak alpha with a complex. Dean slides off of his mattress and upends his backpack, spilling the contents.

With his bag full of clothes and the guts of his piggy bank, Dean makes his escape through his bedroom window.

**X**

The heat gets bad.

Dean isn’t sure how long or far that he’s walked but he’s someplace along the highway now. Cars whip by but the breezes that follow them do nothing to cool him down. He’s itchy and miserable and he doesn’t know why he didn’t think to bring his heat toy with him, even if it’s kind of embarrassing.

When he reaches an exit, Dean wanders down the shoulder until he finds someplace quiet to set his backpack and sit down. His breath comes in short pants, and he’s sweated all the way through the back of his shirt. It’s damp around his collar, too, and when a truck whizzes by he shivers.

Dean slips down onto the ground and rests his head against his backpack, breathing slowly. He doesn’t notice that somebody’s stopped next to him until the deep bellow of a truck horn sounds, jolting him out of his haze. An enormous eighteen-wheeler pulls over next to Dean, hazard lights flashing. On the other side of the truck, Dean hears the sound of feet landing, and a second later, he has a guy in his face, an alpha.

His eyes are yellow.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he greets, “You lookin’ to get a ride somewhere?”

This is a bad idea.

Dean knows it’s a bad idea.

The alpha arousal sloughs off of this guy in sick, bitter waves, so strong that Dean concentrates on breathing through his mouth so he doesn’t have to smell it. His insides are all squirmy and from beyond the heat he knows that he’s afraid, that the cloying sense of security he feels in the presence of an alpha is just nature doing her business all over his brain.

“You can’t knot me,” Dean says, finally.

A slow, seedy smile creeps up on the face of the yellow-eyed truck driver. He says, “Ain’t no problem with that. You got something you can do, honey?”

Dean’s heart feels like it might beat right out of his chest. The way the guy is smiling, Dean knows that he can smell the fear, that he’s getting off on it. He’s one of those alphas, the kind that like to make omegas do all kinds of horrible things just because they can.

But Dean needs to get away from here. He can’t stay in this town. There’s nothing left for him. Sammy’s gonna be an alpha and he’ll find his own way through life. Dad won’t bug him about so long as he springs a knot, and Dean is pretty confident that he will. If Dean stays, if his dad comes out and finds him and brings him back home, then he’ll be sold off to some alpha he doesn’t know crap about that his dad likes.

Dean doesn’t wanna be anywhere near some alpha that his dad likes.

“I can, um. I can suck you off?” Dean offers, hesitating. It’s not like he’s a virgin. He had lots of sex before he presented. Mostly beta girls and guys, ‘cause they were neutral ground, and being unpresented made him kind of like a beta too. Beta cock is nowhere near the size of an alpha, but…it doesn’t matter. Dean just can’t stay.

“Sounds perfect,” the truck driver says.

When the dude unzips his jeans and sidles over to Dean, Dean asks, “Now?”

“Now. You pay up before I give you a lift.”

Dean doesn’t say anything, just pushes himself up off of the ground and onto his knees. He wobbles, still dizzy in his heat spell, but the alpha truck driver catches Dean with one cold hand fisted in Dean’s hair. It hurts, but Dean doesn’t say so. And when Yellow Eyes commands, “Go on and take me out, omega.”

His hands shake, but Dean does it. Yellow Eyes is already hard and he’s _big_ , real big, not unlike alphas that Dean’s seen in porn videos online. The smell of him is awful. It’s too potent. There’s too much alpha and it’s a dangerous kind of smell.

“Open wide,” Yellow Eyes commands, and pulls Dean up by his hair. With his free hand, he cups the side of Dean’s face. It makes Dean want to throw up, but he lets his mouth fall open, ready and waiting, the kind of omega his dad wants him to be – obedient and silent.

Turns out that Dean doesn’t have to do any work. Yellow Eyes doesn’t give Dean even a moment to adjust before he thrusts hard into his mouth, holding Dean’s hair with both hands now and shoving Dean’s face forward and back. Dean chokes and gasps for air, but instead of making the truck driver stop, it just makes him go faster, a big grin wide on his face.

“You like that, don’t you? All you omegas do. Can’t go too long without some alpha dick, or you get all testy.”

It’s so hard to breathe and it hurts so much that Dean starts to cry. Yellow Eyes doesn’t care. He just fucks into Dean’s mouth and chuckles, “Don’t cry now, sweetheart. I’m giving you what you need.”

It feels like forever before Yellow Eyes’ knot inflates and he comes into Dean’s mouth. He pulls away and spills his spunk onto Dean’s face and down the front of his t-shirt. It’s the grossest thing that Dean has ever felt, ever tasted. Usually he likes the taste, because he knows he made somebody happy, but not this time. This is a transaction, and it’s only lasting as long as it takes Dean to be out of smell-range from his dad and the cops.

“Good boy,” says Yellow Eyes, “Now, where are you headed?”

“Anywhere but here,” Dean says, and wipes the spooge from his face with his arm.

**X**

When Yellow Eyes pulls into a truck stop for gas and some grub, Dean knows he has to go. This truck guy has creep and possible-murderer written all over him, and like hell Dean’s gonna become one of those omegas on Investigation Discovery. Yellow Eyes could barely look at the road; he was looking at Dean so often. Dean attributed at least part of the staring to the heat-stench all over himself, but there was something behind the rabid want that unsettled Dean a whole lot.

So Dean waits for Yellow Eyes to duck into the Gas n’ Sip for cigarettes and junk food before he opens the truck door and slips out, clumsy. He falls into a heap on the concrete below and has a brief moment of panic, wondering if the truck driver can hear him from that far away. He holds his backpack to his chest instead of wearing it on his back, and he runs, whipping by trucks and people, hoping he’s been alpha-ed all over enough to smell less like heat.

An opportunity presents itself in the form of a cracked-open door at the end of another truck.

If Dean hid in the back of a truck, he couldn’t be sniffed out as easily, and he’d still get the free ride the hell outta dodge, no alpha dicks attached. He scans the rest of the stop to make sure no one’s looking before he wedges his backpack under the small space and opens it just a little more.

It makes an awful metal screech.

Dean winces but he doesn’t pause. He wriggles through the space, metal cold on his too-hot skin. With a final push he rolls into the back of the truck, launched over his things and into a cardboard box of something hard and heavy. He scrambles in the dark, groping for his backpack. When he finds it, he clutches it close again.

The backpack and its insides are the only things he has now.

The muffled noise of the driver’s door of this new truck being opened sounds, faint. The blood in Dean’s veins jumps as his heart tries to find a rhythm. Either the driver’ll smell him or he won’t, and there’s only one way that he wants this to go.

The truck rumbles to life. A beat after, Dean allows himself a long sigh of relief. He’s sore and hot and scared, but as he feels the truck move away from the stop, he feels a glimmer of hope. There’s something to hold onto. He’s not a murder victim or some alpha’s slave boy yet. He has a chance to make his own life.

Dean still lets several minutes pass before he allows himself to relax a little. He shifts his backpack out of the circle of his arms and positions it on the uneven, vibrating surface of the truck bed. It makes him woozy when he sets his head down on it, but he knows it’s as good as it’s going to get.

Curled into a tight ball, Dean falls asleep.

**X**

“What in the hell?”

Those words sit in Dean’s ears, and he opens his eyes. Every bone in his body hurts, and his mouth is so dry that his tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth. It takes him several seconds to register that he isn’t at home on his bed, that he’s stowed away in –

A bearded truck driver, another alpha, looks Dean up and down. It’s not in a sex-way, though, and that’s good news. He does look surprised to have found Dean sleeping in his truck, though.

“Sorry,” Dean says, “I’m really sorry. I just needed a ride and your truck was open and little, and, um. I’ll get out now. Please.”

“What the heck happened to you?” the truck driver asks, brow knitting. The scent that he gives off isn’t anything like Yellow Eyes, or even Dean’s dad. It’s closer to the way that Sam smells, like comfort, like being safe.

“I just had to get out of my town. I’m sorry. I really am.”

“Ain’t nothin’ to be sorry for, son. You know where you’re headed?” asks the truck driver, “What’s your name, kiddo?”

“No, I…didn’t pick a place. I just. I needed to leave,” Dean tries to explain. He doesn’t want to give away too much, no matter how this alpha smells. He could be one of those alphas with _traditional values_ that wants Dean “safe at home” which is really just code for “barefoot and pregnant”. He swallows the knot in his throat and adds, “I’m Dean.”

“Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Dean,” says the alpha, “My name’s Bobby. I gotta say; I’m a little surprised to find you back here. You tellin’ me you don’t know where you’re headed?”

Dean shakes his head. He says slowly, “I have sixty two dollars and fifty nine cents. Do you know of any motels or something that charge that cheap?”

“Not really,” says Bobby, and Dean’s heart sinks. Before he can wilt too much, Bobby goes on, “but I do know of a place a couple miles out from here. It’s a bed and breakfast joint. Guy that runs it takes care of folks that need help, ‘specially omegas. I’m pretty dang sure he’d put you up – he might ask for some chores done, but he runs a nice place.”

That sounds too good to be true.

“How do I know I can trust you?” asks Dean.

Bobby shrugs, “You can’t. You can only trust your nose and your gut. I can leave you here if you like, or drop you off someplace else. I gotta say, though, you look pretty peaky. It’d make me feel better if I could at least get some breakfast in you first and maybe a change of clothes.”

“I have clothes,” Dean says.

“Do you have breakfast?”

“No. But I could buy it myself.”

“That’s up to you, son,” Bobby says, “but I know I gotta eat something, so I’m grabbin’ some pancakes. You’re welcome if you want to join.”

At the mention of pancakes, Dean’s stomach growls. He looks down, and frowns at the huge, crusty stain of alpha come over the front of his shirt. He says, “I have to change my clothes first.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Bobby murmurs, “I can wait up. The station’s got some restrooms on the inside. Want me to show you?”

Dean nods and follows Bobby, holding onto his things like they might float away if he lets go. He feels stupid for feeling safe with this guy. He doesn’t even know him. Dean feels even stupider when he realizes that it’s probably because Bobby’s an alpha, the kind that doesn’t smell like danger but the kind that smells like a home.

It isn’t until they’re in front of the bathroom door in the convenience store that Bobby remarks on the smell of Dean’s fear. The crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes soften with the rest of his expression as he says, “I just want you to know that you don’t gotta be afraid of me, son. From the looks of you that might be somethin’ unbelievable coming from an alpha, but I swear I’m just trying to give you a hand. You ain’t the first to show up outta the blue.”

For some reason, knowing that he isn’t the only omega that Bobby’s come across comforts Dean. So he nods and mumbles, “Okay,” before he lets himself into the guys’ room.

The restroom is pretty gross looking. It smells musty, and like industrial-strength cleaning crap trying to cover grossness that won’t go away. Still, it’s better than nothing, and Dean wastes no time stripping his come-stained t-shirt and stuffing it in the empty front pocket of his backpack.

Before Dean redresses, he wets a brown paper towel under the flow of the sink and pumps some soap out onto it. He washes up as best he can, trying to erase the remnants of Yellow Eyes and their short-lived but hair-raising ride out of town. When he’s satisfied with the result, Dean fishes his deodorant out of his bag and runs it under his pits.

With a quick comb of his hair with his fingers, it’s almost as if Dean drove here with Bobby from the start. He still looks tired, with shadows under his eyes and bruises from being jostled around in the back of Bobby’s truck, but at least some alpha’s jizz isn’t all over him. And Dean’s pretty sure that he’s not gonna be murdered.

He’s not one hundred percent on it, but Dean feels much better about Bobby than he did Yellow Eyes.

A rap of knuckles against the bathroom doors startles Dean, but he calms as soon as he hears Bobby asking, “You doin’ all right in there? Didn’t fall in the can, didja?”

Dean opens the door and says, “I’m fine,” a little harder than he means to.

Bobby cocks a brow but doesn’t say anything, not even a word about Dean being an uppity omega or needing to know his place or having to watch his tone. He just leads them through the door to the adjoining truck stop waffle house, where a middle-aged beta waitress leads them to a table next to windows painted with prices of breakfast specials.

“You go on order anything you want,” Bobby tells him.

Dean echoes, “Anything I want?”

“Go for it, kid.”

Dean orders a stack of french toast, two sides of hash browns, eggs sunny-side up, and bacon and sausage. He tops it all off with a tall glass of orange juice and a mug of coffee, to a waitress goggling at his laundry list of breakfast items. But hey, Bobby did say anything.

When the waitress peels away to relay their orders, Bobby says, “Best you eat all them sausages and bacon and drink all your juice. It’ll help with the heat n’ all.”

It’s the first mention that Bobby’s made of his heat, outside telling Dean that he looked like he needed breakfast. The realization takes Dean aback. This Bobby guy, an alpha, didn’t say one word about Dean’s heady smell or dilated eyes or anything, until he wanted to make sure Dean ate the right stuff. He’s pretty sure that this is the kinda junk that alphas are supposed to do – make a guy feel safe without putting him on a leash, so to speak.

So Dean just agrees, “All right,” and makes sure to do what Bobby says when their food comes. He finishes the rest of his food, too. It’s not hard. He had no idea how hungry he was until he got a plate of steaming goodies in front of him. He wolfs it down without one word, until the bitter end –

“Thanks, Bobby.”

**X**

Dean decides he likes Bobby not too much later in the day. He lets Dean sit up in the front next to him and lets him pick the music that they listen to, too. He doesn’t talk much, and that suits both of them just fine. Dean can curl up and fall asleep, alpha-scent surrounding him, stuck deep into the leather of the leather of the seats.

When he wakes up, he asks, “Do you have a family?”

“Used to,” Bobby replies, “My Karen – my omega – she got real sick. Breast cancer.”

“Oh,” says Dean.

Bobby casts a pointed look at him and asks, “You got a family, son?”

“Kind of,” Dean says, “I have a little brother. He’s gonna be an alpha, and he’s really smart. Like, way smarter than me. My dad, he. He was gonna take me outta school and he wanted me to find an omega job or something and a mate.”

Bobby scoffs. He says, “You’re what, fifteen? Sixteen? You got no business findin’ no mate now.”

“Sixteen. And I told him that too and he locked me in my room,” Dean says, “So I ran away.”

“Ain’t surprising,” Bobby tells him, “Lots a’ kids have the same old thing happen to them. I’m real glad you decided to climb in my truck, son. I got close friends in this business, but I got at least twice as many drivers I think are out of their friggin’ skulls.” Bobby doesn’t mention that Dean had jizz all over himself when they met, nor did he mention the obvious assumption that Dean ran into a truck driver that Bobby would think is out of his skull.

A small, hesitant smiles creeps up on Dean’s face before he can help it. He doesn’t tell Bobby that he’s one of the nicest alphas that he’s ever met, nor does he tell him that he’s glad that he climbed into the back of Bobby’s truck, too. But Dean knows Bobby can smell the scent of _safe omega_ , curling all around them like the warmth of a blanket.

That, and the general feel of good alpha lull Dean back to sleep.

Not long after he closes his eyes, Bobby’s hand is on his arm, giving him a gentle shake awake. He says, “We’re here. At the bed and breakfast I told you about. You want me to go in with you?”

A nervous churn of his belly makes Dean swallow. He got so used to Bobby in the last couple of hours that it seemed like it would be nice to stay with him. Logically, he knows he can’t do that – he’s a teenage omega and Bobby is an alpha with an adult job that takes up a lot of time.

“Don’t you worry, now,” Bobby says. There’s something soft behind the stern way he says it. After a beat, Bobby adds, “I’ll come with you. Gabriel’s a good feller but he’s – ah. A little,” – Bobby makes a circling motion around his ear – “Y’know. Kooky.”

Dean grips the straps of his backpack tight as he and Bobby walk to the front door of the bed and breakfast. It looks old on the outside but recently painted and re-shingled, like a place that somebody cares about. The outside paneling is gray-blue, and window boxes of flowers line the first floor windows. It’s three stories, Dean counts. The second floor has little decks sticking out.

Dean decides it looks like a nice place.

Bobby holds the door open for Dean and follows him inside. The small lobby smells amazing. Surely somebody is cooking dinner someplace – roast chicken and mashed potatoes and something cinnamony that lingers in Dean’s nose.

Behind a dark-stained and old-smelling front desk, an omega with his long hair combed away from his face shuffles with some papers. Beside him, a toddler in half of a dragon costume and tie-dye shorts sits on top of the desk with crayons strewn all over. The pup reaches over and jabs the omega right in the chest.

“ _Ow_. Don’t poke me in the boob. Daddy’s working.”

Bobby makes a loud _ahem_ noise from behind Dean.

The omega looks up and greets, “Heya, Bobster.”

“I told you not to call me that, y’idjit.”

“Fine – Bob-alicious-Definition-Make-Omegas-Loco.”

“Darn it, Gabriel, will you be serious for one fraction of a second? I got a pup here that needs a place to stay,” says Bobby.

“Not a pup,” mutters Dean, but nobody appears to hear him.

The omega – Gabriel – shifts his focus to Dean and looks him over. As he assesses Dean, Bobby goes on to say, “I found him stowed away in the back of my truck in pretty rough shape. The story’s his to tell but I think this one needs the place.”

“I’m right here,” says Dean, sharply.

At that Gabriel waves him over and says, “C’mere, puppy.”

“Not a puppy,” complains Dean.

“What’s your name?” Gabriel asks.

“Dean.”

“Well, Dean, you got a problem with doing some housekeeping sometimes in between guests?”

Dean shakes his head. He doesn’t mind cleaning at all. Back at home – or what used to be home, anyway – he’d sometimes clean up the house if he got angry. Having a neat space made him feel better. Safer. Less closed-in. Gabriel seems to be waiting for words, so he says, “Yeah. I can clean pretty good.”

“Awesome. Then you’ve got a place right here The Snoozing Squirrel B&B. I’ll take it from here, Bobster,” Gabriel says.

Dean turns in time to see Bobby roll his eyes. Nerves leak in at the thought of Bobby leaving, even though they’ve only known each other for a handful of hours. Dean’s scent must give something away, because Bobby looks right at him and says, “I’ll be around, son. You take good care of yourself, y’hear? I want you lookin’ right as rain when I come ‘round again.”

“All right,” Dean agrees. He feels better knowing that this isn’t _goodbye_ -goodbye.

Bobby leaves and Gabriel takes Dean up to the second floor of the bed and breakfast, with his pup toddling behind him. Gabriel doesn’t smell mated and doesn’t have a mating bite, at least in any obvious places. Dean decides it’s probably none of his beeswax how the pup in the dragon costume and tie-dye shorts came to be.

“All righty, these’ll be your digs,” Gabriel says, unlocking a solid wood door with an old key. He lets the door swing open before he passes the key to Dean and asks, “What d’you think? We’re not the Ritz but I like to think it has a certain charm.”

Dean thinks so too. The room isn’t a huge space, just big enough to hold a standard-sized bed with crisp white sheets and a poofy plaid comforter; a bedside table with an alarm clock and one of those ugly hula girl lamps on it, complete with fringe around the shade; a dresser with a smaller, older TV; and a retro-looking, mustard colored armchair with big white daisies on it. Another lamp hovers over the chair, much more reasonable looking than the hula girl lamp.

But Dean likes it. Nothing really matches but that makes it feel more like a home to him than someplace with fancy bedding and carpet you’re afraid you might ruin if you breathe the wrong way. This room has wood floors.

“The door next to your bed is a closet, and the one next to the TV is to your bathroom.”

“I, um. It’s nice. Thank you.”

Gabriel reaches out and ruffles Dean’s hair, a gesture from which Dean jerks away and glares.

“You just missed lunch, but I could bring you some leftovers if you so please,” says Gabriel.

“I’m not hungry,” Dean tells him, which is only half-true. He could probably use some food, but he’s so worn down that this stomach churns and flips at the thought of having anything in it. Really, Dean just wants to go back to sleep.

“If you change your mind, holler at me,” Gabe says, “If I’m not down at the front there’s a bell you can ring and somebody’ll find you. I’m pretty sure. Aaanyways, dinner hours start at six thirty and end at eight. Menu says pork chops, so that should be killer.”

“Okay,” Dean replies.

With nothing left to say, Gabriel salutes at Dean and tells him to behave himself before he hefts his toddler into his arms and heads back toward the stairs, whistling something tuneless. It’s quiet after Gabriel leaves, especially when Dean closes the door. Dean distracts himself by putting his meager selection of clothing in the closet on cheap wire hangers.

He sets the clothes stained with Yellow Eyes’ come aside in a dark corner of the closet. He’ll wash them later. Dean just doesn’t want Gabriel to see the clothes, or smell them. The very thought makes his face heat up with shame, and his throat close with the memory of crying and trying to breathe while he let some guy fuck his face.

Dean wishes he could say that he’s tired of sex, but even through the haze of adrenaline and exhaustion flowing through him, he can feel his heat. It’s all prickly and mean, hurting like a sonuvabitch. And Dean is horny and desperate, but he doesn’t want to ruin the bed before he even gets a chance to sleep in it. For a long time, Dean stares at the bed, standing in the middle of the room, before he crawls up onto it and slips under the covers.

It’s a lot better than the back of a truck.

Gabriel’s voice wakes him – and the smell of home-cooked food. Dean shifts up and sees Gabe with a plate in his hands, still hot.

“You slept through dinner,” Gabriel says, “Figured you’d still be hungry, being a growing puppy and all.”

Dean glares at Gabriel and snatches the food from his hands.

“All right, all right. Sheesh. But speaking of puppies, I gotta get mine to bed.”

Somewhere on the same floor, there’s a loud _CRASH_ and the sound of Gabriel’s pup screaming at the top of his lungs. Gabriel rolls his eyes heavenward and says, “Yuuuup, that’s about right. Little demon refuses to let his uncle put him down. See you ‘round, Dean. Just stick your dishes outside your door when you’re done.”

“’Kay.”

“Toodles,” Gabe says, and is gone.

**X**

After Dean leaves his dirty dishes outside his room, he takes the best damn shower of his life. Even though he had a shower yesterday in the morning – God, was it really only that long ago that he was at his old home? – he still feels dirtier than he ever has in his life. Dean scrubs his skin until it’s pink and raw. He’s like a lizard shedding its skin.

From here on out, Dean isn’t the same Dean anymore. He used to hero-worship his dad, used to do as he was told before and after he presented. He’ll never be that person anymore. He doesn’t know much about the person that he’s going to be now, though.

So far all that Dean knows is that he’s no longer Dean Winchester, high school student from Lawrence, Kansas. Instead, he’s Dean Winchester, dropout housekeeper at The Snoozing Squirrel.

Come to think of it, he doesn’t even know where the hell the Snoozing fucking Squirrel B&B even is. He makes a mental note to find somebody he can ask that question tomorrow. Tonight, according to the alarm clock, it’s already almost ten. Too late to find somebody.

Too late to do much of anything.

Dean opts to crawl back onto his bed (nice-ass, plush bed) and turn on his TV. It doesn’t have a DVR or anything like the TV back in the place in Kansas. Not his place anymore. He channel surfs for a while, watching maybe ten minutes of a local news channel.

“… _that’s it for your ten o’clock news update, local, from your favorite newscasters in Apple Springs, Colorado._ ”

Huh. Dean isn’t sure where Apple Springs falls in Colorado exactly. He hopes it’s far enough away from Kansas, anyway. The police would’ve lost his scent at the shoulder of the road where Yellow Eyes picked Dean up, but his dad’s a good tracker. He wouldn’t just let Dean go.

He changes the channel from news to some cartoon, but it doesn’t matter. A wave of heat runs headlong into Dean, too powerful to just bite down and ignore. So Dean pulls the plaid cover over him almost to the neck and wiggles out of his boxers, not all the way, just far enough so he can spread his legs open and press a finger inside himself.

Dean whimpers at the feeling. It’s a relief but it isn’t enough. He tries two fingers and then settles on three. His other hand drifts to his cock. He rocks himself back onto his fingers and forward into his hand. It’s perfect, so good, so damn good he could cry.

Instead he just comes. Hard. It’s all over the sheets and as soon as he comes down from the afterglow, Dean hopes that his housekeeping duties will include laundry. He really doesn’t want anybody else to see this bedding. It reeks like heat and horny omega and come and. Crap. Dean rolls off of the bed, tripping over his boxers.

Even after he scrubs down his sheets and blanket with water and a bar of soap, they smell.

But it’s better.

A restless minute of cartoons later, Dean pulls a t-shirt over his head and clutches his room key in his fist.

With a breath, he pads cautiously into the hallway. The B&B is silent but for the whirring of a generator somewhere. Dean treads down the stairs. Like any hotel, everywhere outside of the rooms is well-lit, including the empty reception desk with a hand bell with a sign that says _Need Anything? Just Ring!_ Dean does not ring the bell, and opts instead to venture into the space to the left of the lobby desk.

It’s the dining area. It’s not huge, but it’s enough to fit several tables outfitted in cheesy tablecloths and weird, mismatched chairs. It shouldn’t look good this way, but somehow it does. It has more personality than a crisp, white dining room with bleached napkins and more than one fork. Dean dares to go a little further into his exploration and finds the adjoining kitchen. Now _that_ looks state of the art. Gabriel must care about the cooking.

Next, Dean crosses the lobby to find what’s on the right side. What he finds, he likes. It’s almost like a little coffee shop, though the barista station is noiseless and closed down for the night. That doesn’t stop the scent of coffee grounds seeping into every crevice of the room, countered only by the smell of old pages emanating from the wall of bookshelves.

Finally, something other than a TV that he can do around this joint.

Dean toes forward, past small, eclectic tables and poofy retro armchairs like the one in his room. The books are alphabetized. He scans the titles for anything that sounds familiar and finds a spine declaring _Vonnegut._ Dean eases the book out from between its companions.

Cat’s Cradle. He hasn’t read it, but maybe he should. Then again, books that teachers like always make Dean nervous. Maybe he should stick to something that he usually likes, old cheesy scifi books or fantasy epics. Maybe now he’ll have time to read those books that Sammy likes – the one with the HBO show with lots of naked omegas and a couple naked alphas and betas thrown in. And also violence.

Game of Thrones, he remembers. Duh. That’s what those books are called.

Dean turns to find the ‘M’ section of the bookcases –

“The series is actually entitled A Song of Ice and Fire.”

And swings around to see an alpha sitting in a red armchair in the back corner of the room, legs criss-crossed in sweatpants with a book open on his lap. His brows sit high on his forehead, bright eyes staring straight at Dean.

Dean yelps in surprise, backing into a chair, and letting Cat’s Cradle fall out of his hands in the process. He scrambles to pick it up and backs away a few more steps. It doesn’t stop the subtle scent of the alpha from curling in Dean’s nostrils. And fuckin’ a, the guy smells fucking fantastic. Whatever it is, it feels like Love Potion No.9.

“Who are you?” Dean demands.

“I’m Castiel,” says Castiel, “You must be the new omega my brother’s taken in.”

“ _You’re_ Gabriel’s brother?” Dean manages. This alpha doesn’t look anything like Gabe. Castiel has blue eyes and dark, bedhead hair, and where Gabe has laughter in his face, Castiel has just as much seriousness. But Gabe did say something about his pup having an uncle…

Castiel heaves a sigh and marks his place in his book. He says, “Half-brother. As much as it pains me to admit it.”

“Do you work for him?”

“Technically, I suppose,” Castiel says and lets out a laugh that doesn’t sound amused.

“Are you mad ‘cause your boss is an omega?” asks Dean. Lots of alphas get mad if their boss is an omega. They say that omegas use their sex appeal to climb the corporate ladder and weaker-willed alphas let it happen. Dean thinks they’re all jackasses.

“Christ, no,” answers Castiel, “Gabriel is an excellent boss. I don’t even know that I’m ‘mad’ at anything. Maybe I’m bitter because years ago I thought I’d be a great poet or maybe that I’d written a best-selling book, but in actuality I have a literature degree, no poems or books, and I serve coffee at my brother’s business. It’s far less romantic than the future I’d envisioned.”

Dean huffs a noise of agreement. He says, “I thought I was gonna be an alpha. Y’know. Was a late bloomer, or whatever. Never really thought about the future, though. Everything’s too expensive to think about.”

“Well said,” Castiel says, “Though I’m sure you never anticipated _this_ ,” – he waves a hand at their surroundings – “as your future.”

“Nah,” Dean says, “’Cause if I’d presented alpha like I thought, I wouldn’t have had to, um. Get outta town.”

Castiel doesn’t ask for Dean’s tragic backstory, for which Dean is grateful. He’s tired of talking about his dad and he’s tired of thinking about who he’s supposed to be now that he’s not his dad’s good little soldier. Instead, Castiel inclines his head at Dean’s book and says, “That’s a good one.”

“I hope so. Never really liked books that you get assigned and school and crap, though.”

“What do you typically read? Or do you prefer something else?”

“I read,” Dean rushes to say, “I like scifi and fantasy and stuff.”

“Have you read Bradbury?”

Dean shakes his head.

Castiel stands. As he steps closer, Dean steps back away. He expects Castiel to be offended, but he doesn’t look affected at all. He hums, “I’m not going to do anything unbecoming just because you’re in heat. I just wanted to give you a book.” Castiel runs his finger along the spines of the books in the first shelf. He pauses, and pulls a slim book out of the mix.

Castiel sets the book on the floor and gently pushes it about halfway between them before he returns to his chair, and his own book.

“The Illustrated Man,” Castiel says, “I have a feeling you would like it.”

Dean edges forward and picks the book up off of the ground. It’s unnerving to be this close to an alpha that smells this nice, ‘cause his heat is pulling him like a puppet on strings toward Castiel and particularly the contents of Castiel’s sweatpants. He shakes himself out of it, though, and looks down at the book.

“Thanks, man,” he says, “I think I’m gonna – go. Now.”

“Goodnight, Dean. Pleasant dreams.”

It takes Dean until he’s halfway up the stairs to realize that he never told Castiel his name; the guy just knew.

**X**

Dean and Castiel are on Dean’s bed, side by side. Dean scrutinizes Castiel, watching his light, serious eyes as Castiel watches him. He can smell alpha arousal, but better than it usually smells. It’s heady and good, like every holiday combined into one, perfect scent. He feels himself start to get wet from need and this time it isn’t embarrassing.

It’s perfect.

Castiel must smell him, because he pushes himself up onto his palms and boxes Dean in with his limbs. Castiel buries his nose in Dean’s neck. The barest scrape of teeth makes his skin tingle.

All at once they’re naked and Castiel is better than Dean ever imagined he could be. His skin is all tan and he’s got nice shoulders, but the best part is in between his legs. Castiel is hard and huge. He won’t fuck Dean right away for that reason, instead stretching Dean with long, attentive fingers.

…Dean rises up from his pillow with a gasp. Cold sweat soaks his t-shirt from the collar down but he’s too hot, still too hot. His toes curl and he whines. This is a bad wave, and shit, he came in his boxers. He came in his boxers, and he did it dreaming about Gabriel’s brother.

Dean doesn’t even know him. How can he dream like that about somebody he barely knows?

He shakes with the force of the heat. Even having had an orgasm wake him, an erection persists in his shorts and he’s got slick everywhere, all over the bed.

“Damn it,” Dean mutters. This is not how he wanted the morning to begin.

Something does pierce through the heat-scent as he breathes and tries to will his body down from the edge. There’s bacon someplace, and eggs. God, Dean could kill for some eggs. He makes himself climb out of bed and follow his nose. He’ll clean up before he leaves – Dean just wants to be sure.

Turns out that Dean doesn’t have to leave at all: A tray much like the dinner tray sits beside his door. Bacon, eggs, and some cut-up fruit accompany a small glass of juice, a huge glass of water, and a mug of black coffee with a thing of sugar packets next to it. A box, too, sits at the very edge of the tray.

The relief that comes from not having to leave his room is incredible. Dean takes the tray into his room, and tells himself to remember to thank Gabriel later. He may be “kooky” but he sure can run a tight ship.

While Dean digs into his food, upending thimble-sized packages of cream and some sugar into his coffee, he pulls the lid off of the box on the tray.

Dean almost drops it as soon as the box is open.

Maybe he won’t thank Gabriel after breakfast. Or maybe he’ll thank Gabriel three times over. One or the other.

Inside the box is the fanciest fake knot that Dean has ever seen. He experimentally presses one of the buttons and finds in a few more presses that the thing has like, a kajillion settings. He’s never had a vibrator. Hell, Dean hasn’t seen a vibrator outside of porn vids. When Dean pushes the next button up, the base of the toy starts to stretch and flare out.

At the bottom of the box, a note reads: “Happy Heat Sex! –XOXO Gabriel (PS laundry room is in basement. Your room key will let you in. Go nuts)” and there’s a doodle of a dick at the bottom of the scrap of paper. The dick has a smiley face on it.

“Heh,” Dean smiles. He turns the power off on the toy before he can get too excited. He should eat all his food before any sexcapades go down, because he really doesn’t want Gabriel to have to scrape him off of his bedroom floor if he passes out from overdoing it.

The heat eases a little after Dean eats, but it doesn’t go away enough to ignore it. Cautiously, Dean picks the toy up again.

It’s like goddamn magic. It’s like Dean is actually with a living, breathing alpha taking care of him through his heat. The only thing he doesn’t have is the weight of somebody behind him, to wrap his arms around or who wraps their arms around Dean. But that’s all right. He uses his blanket instead. There’s no alpha scent to bring him down to earth, but the warmth of his blanket burrito is enough to ease him into a post-masturbation nap.

When Dean comes to, his heat is in a lull, and his stomach yowls at him. He untangles himself from the bedding and debates taking a shower – but fuck it. One shower wasn’t going to mask his heat from anybody. They’d know whether he wanted them to or not. So Dean sticks with fresh boxers and jeans and a t-shirt, and realizes just how little he has.

There aren’t even enough clothes from his backpack to keep him dressed for a week. He’ll need new ones, but that also means he’ll need money. Maybe Gabriel can pay him for doing housekeeping stuff? A pang of guilt hits him at the thought, because Gabriel’s already done so much. Maybe he can do extra chores for some change, though. It couldn’t hurt to ask, right?

Dean contemplates the idea as he pockets his room key and wanders downstairs. Something heavenly wafts from the direction of the dining room, but when Dean walks in, it’s empty, just as clean and tidy as it was the night before.

The kitchen – that’s another story.

Dean pokes his head in to see a massive bear of an alpha caught between a million tasks at once, stirring and checking the oven and setting food in the big-ass fridge to set. The whir of movement stops when he smells Dean. He turns and says, “Wonderin’ when I’d be seeing you around, brother. I’m Benny, best damn cook in the state of Colorado.” Benny smells nice, real masculine. He’s all earthy and woodsy and Dean kind of wants to stick his nose in his neck.

Maybe a little less than he wants to stick his nose in Castiel’s neck, though. That scent was somethin’ else entirely.

“I’m Dean,” Dean decides on saying, finally.

“Well, Dean, you’re lookin’ pretty bored. You wanna help me cook up some lunch?”

Dean brightens at the prospect of having something to do with his hands and gives Benny an eager nod. He says, “Yeah. Awesome.”

Benny sets Dean up with a deep-fryer and shows him the proper way to make beignets. He doesn’t tell Dean to be careful or that he needs to stand back or any of that other crap that he’s gotten ever since he presented. Hell, Benny leaves him to it instead of watching over him like a hawk the way that his dad and Sam would any time Dean cooked. Before he presented, Dean made all their meals. After, it was _be careful with that knife_ and _are you sure you should be doing that?_

Dean’s beignets aren’t quite as pretty as Benny’s are, but he figures they’ll taste about as good since Dean didn’t have anything to do with the batter. Per Benny’s instruction, Dean sifts powdered sugar over the greasy treats. He beams at Benny when he’s done, though he doesn’t realize he’s doing it until Benny grins right on back, eyes crinkling at the corners.

“Good work, cher,” Benny says, “How’s about you help me take all this food out to the buffet, hmm?”

Dean is more than happy to help carry plates and pots. Benny shows him which things go into trays under heat lamps to keep them warm, and which dishes have warmers lit underneath them, instead.

“Benny, you vampire, I could kiss you this all smells so good.”

Dean glances up to see Gabriel stride into the room. He catches Dean’s eye and says, “Hey, nice to see you off the knot. How goes the heat?”

“Gabriel,” Dean says, exasperated.

“You’re no fun,” Gabriel says, and then turns to Benny, “You need my help putting anything out, or has Dean here got you covered?”

Benny says, “As long as Dean wants to stay long enough to bring out the dishes and silverware, I think we’re all good.”

“You down with that, champ?” Gabriel asks. Dean nods.

And, as he helps set out plates and mimics Benny’s fancy-folded napkins, Dean feels the panic of leaving home ease a little, softening the set of his spine, and making a smile stretch wide on his face. He thinks he may just like it here.

**X**

The end of Dean’s heat couldn’t come a day too soon. When he rolls out of bed smelling normal and without sweating and bugs underneath his skin, he lets out a whoop. The shower that he takes is the best shower of his life, with warm, steady water, and grainy, conifer-scented bar soap that came with the room. Dean exits his bedroom in time to be present for breakfast for the first time since he’s been at the Snoozing Squirrel.

With a meal in his belly, Dean gets put to work by Gabriel. He gets to wheel a cart around with a mop and broom and hand vacuum perched on the edges, and freshly laundered towels and mini toiletries stacked on two tiers. Gabe shows Dean how to fold towels the right way and the method of tucking the comforters on the beds _just so_. With little more instruction than this, he pats Dean on the shoulder at says, “Have at ‘em, pup.”

“Not a pup,” Dean snips, but he still wheels his cart off obediently.

Dean isn’t sure exactly how to announce his presence, but he figures it involves knocking and announcing that he’s doing housekeeping, or whatever. Most of the rooms are unoccupied and clean already, but all of them are different. The furniture in each suite is the same thrift-store charming as what Dean’s room boasts. The art in every one is different, giving the rooms personalities as varied as humanity.

One room looks like a hunting lodge and the next will look like something out of a pay-by-the-hour motel from like a million decades ago, with shag carpeting and a mirrored ceiling.

Dean makes it to the very last room on the first floor with a couple hours, giving the door a sharp knock and a, “Housekeeping!”

This time, a voice responds: “Come in.”

Dean sticks his master key into the lock and turns the knob. Beyond the door, he finds none other than Castiel with his feet propped up on a battered desk and another book in his hands. Dean makes a face and says, “I thought you were the coffee dude or some crap.”

Castiel chuckles and says, “It’s my day off.”

“And you’re not like, outside?”

An amused smile plays at the guy’s lips as he replies, “No. I find that I am a reclusive individual.”

The words _how come_ sit in Dean’s mouth but he decides against saying them. He doesn’t know much about Castiel but he can at least tell when somebody doesn’t want to talk about stuff anymore. So, instead, Dean scratches the back of his neck and says, “I guess I’m supposed to clean up your room? Dang, how come you have a kitchen?”

“I requested it. I prefer to have meals alone,” Castiel answers, “But, ah, you don’t need to clean my room. I am capable of doing so myself.”

“You sure?” Dean asks, “’Cause I just learned how to fold towels all by myself.” It takes a wink for the joke to make sense to Castiel – Dean can see it on his face – but as soon as he catches on he laughs.

“I’m certain,” Castiel says on the end of his laugh, “but I appreciate the offer. I hope Gabriel is not working you too hard?”

“Oh, nah. This is the last room I had to clean. He has some other schmucks on the other floors,” says Dean.

Castiel doesn’t say anything to that, but he keeps smiling at Dean. It’s a barely-there smile, but that’s still what it is. In the silence Dean can’t help but scent the room. Alpha saturates every inch of it, but not the way that Dean smelled John’s alpha smell all over the place back at home. That smell was gooey and not-quite-right, which he’s pretty sure family’s not supposed to smell like.

Castiel and his place smell like _good things_. Something leathery, something earthy, mixed up nice and sweet with the underlying presence of coffee from the pot in Castiel’s kitchenette.

“Dean?” Castiel says.

“What? Oh, crap, sorry. I guess you probably want me to leave you alone now.”

“Not entirely,” Castiel responds, “I’d like to finish my book now, but…perhaps you’d like to join me in the café tonight? I could make us some coffee and you could tell me what you thought about Cat’s Cradle.”

Dean’s face colors. He says, “I didn’t actually get around to reading Cat’s Cradle.”

“No?”

“I read The Illustrated Man first instead. But I’m not quite done. It’s kinda hard to read when, y’know, you’ve got heat kicking your ass. Kind of literally.”

Castiel huffs out another laugh and says, “Well, that book is easy to talk about even if you haven’t finished, as I’m sure you’ve gathered. But I won’t pressure you into my company. I’m not much fun, at least not now.”

“I think you’re all right,” Dean says, brows pinching together. He avoids saying what else he thinks of Cas – _you smell like heaven –_ because it’s probably awkward to hear that from a teenage omega when you’re an alpha that’s already got a college degree and everything. Not that age gaps matter all that much; John wanted to mate Dean off to somebody older, or so he said (“So they can keep an eye on you, Dean.”).

At Castiel’s steady gaze, Dean adds, “I can hang out. When should we hang out?”

“Midnight?” suggests Castiel, “That way there won’t be guests around. I prefer quiet.”

To most alphas, Dean would say to shove their quiet up their asses, but he’s pretty sure Castiel really means it. He nods and says, “Sounds good, Cas. Can I call you Cas?”

“I like it better than ‘Cassie’, which is what Gabriel likes to call me,” he muses, “So yes, I suppose so.”

“Cool,” Dean says, “See you later, Cas.”

When Dean wheels his housekeeping cart toward the door, he waves. Castiel just smiles again.

**X**

Dean creeps downstairs with The Illustrated Man in his hands. The copy is well-worn, paperback cover curling up at the corners and the spine creased with the tally marks of the many people that have read it. Dean finished reading it after dinner. Cas was right. He likes Ray Bradbury a lot. He thinks he might like to read a lot, too, just never figured it out ‘til now.

Dean’s not a fast reader. He supposes his teachers through the years must’ve thought he just didn’t like doing his work.

Which he didn’t, but that is beside the point. No one gave him the time of day, even when everyone thought that he would present as an alpha. After he presented as omega, the world treated Dean as though any time spent on him would be time wasted.

He hasn’t been in this place long – hasn’t even been out in the town, but Dean already knows that he belongs here in Apple Springs more than he ever belonged in Lawrence. The only piece of Lawrence Dean still feels a tether to is Sammy, but Sam’s always been smart. He can hold his own, and he’ll graduate with a perfect 4.0 and get accepted to some fancy college, and then he’ll get a fancy job and a fantastic mate.

“Dean?”

Dean doesn’t realize that he’s standing under the archway between the lobby and the café until he hears the low rumble of Castiel’s voice. He likes Castiel’s voice. It reminds him of his dad’s ’67 Impala. Too bad Dean presented as omega. If he’d presented as alpha, John promised to pass the car down to him. He misses the roll of her engine.

“Sorry,” Dean says, “Just – thinking.”

“Care to share?”

“Nah,” Dean says. Just ‘cause he likes Cas doesn’t mean that he trusts the guy with pieces of himself, of Sam and the Impala and of Lawrence, Kansas.

Cas doesn’t try to argue the point, just responds with a curt nod. He marks his book and sets it down on his chair before ducking behind the barista station. Meanwhile, he explains, “I’ve been experimenting with different drinks. I thought maybe you could taste test one or two and tell me what you think. You do like coffee, right?”

“Yeah, dude, let’s do it,” says Dean.

The night passes with Dean idly leaning on the counter surrounding the barista station, talking to Cas about all kinds of crap – most of it is stuff that doesn’t matter, but Castiel does hold up a hand to quiet Dean when Dean mentions that he used to have to fix the crappy plumbing at his old house all the time (especially when John became wrapped up in his work, although Dean omits this part).

“You can fix plumbing?” Cas says, brows lifted.

“I just said I could,” replies Dean. Castiel snorts. Back with his family, Dean would have gotten slapped for sassing an alpha like that.

Castiel says, “This building is fairly old, so Gabriel often runs into issues with plumbing and leaks and the like. Perhaps you could help fix things instead of housekeeping.”

“I don’t mind cleaning up stuff,” Dean says, “But that would be awesome! Hey, you guys got any wiring stuff all screwed up or anything, ‘cause I can fix electrical too.”

“We do have part of the building that loses power every now and again,” hums Castiel, and rounds the barista station to place the third mug of the night in front of Dean. He has one of his own this time, and takes the seat across from him instead of casting expectant glances from a distance. He gestures to the mismatched mugs and says, “This is my personal favorite of my inventions. It’s a crème brûlée latte. I use a light roast.”

Despite Cas’ apparent bitterness at being a college graduate with a degree and no job prospects, living with family, he sure gets a kick out of making up weird drinks. Dean basically likes every one that Cas puts in front of him, although he’s less of a sweet coffee man and more of a straight-up black brew dude. But Cas is on friggin’ point with this experiment. The crème brûlée drink has just enough espresso to light Dean up from the inside out, and just enough sweet to put a smile on his face.

“Dude, this is freaking awesome,” Dean exclaims.

“You think so?” asks Cas. His face betrays tentativeness that an alpha shouldn’t have. That makes Dean like him even more.

Dean takes another sip of his coffee and says, “Yeah, man, for real.”

**X**

The heats in the next months don’t suck nearly as much as the first one that Dean waited out at the Snoozing Squirrel. He thinks maybe it’s because he doesn’t worry so much here. Yeah, sure, Sam crosses Dean’s mind from time to time and maybe he sends out a little prayer to the universe that Sammy’ll be okay without him. Everything else feels – right.

Dean spends time working on shitty plumbing and chewed-through wires or cleaning up the wiring laid down by a shifty contractor. Gabe and Benny say stuff like “You’re dang young to be so handy” (Benny) or “How the eff does a twinky omega charm my bathroom sink into behaving in half a fuckin’ hour?” (Gabe).

While Dean objects to the label _twinky omega_ , he preens under the praise. Fixing crap back in Lawrence was just expected, and hell, John never noticed if something got fixed, but he sure as heck noticed if something broke. It’s nice being – appreciated, having folks see that the crap you’re doing isn’t something done by magic; there’s a man behind efficient electricity and sinks that don’t clog.

The guests are nice, too. Sometimes people rent out the dining room for things like parties or sometimes weddings, and everyone at the B&B pitches in to cook and serve food, and clean up after the revelry comes to a close and all that remains is the debris of a damn good time. And they always are a good time: If Dean sees a guest that looks like they’d rather be anywhere else, he talks to them. Sometimes he takes them to the café piece of the B&B, where there are fewer people and Cas can whip ‘em up something delicious.

When Dean presented he lost his purpose. Or, at least, it felt that way. No longer could he be alpha Dean Winchester, strong, protector of his family. To those that surrounded him, Dean became weak. He turned from an asset to a liability with one snap of Mother Nature’s fingers, fast enough to give him whiplash.

Now Dean’s been a fixture at the Snoozing Squirrel longer than he was an omega in Lawrence.

It’s creeping up on five months, maybe? It’s mid-July.

The night is hot when Dean dreams his father finds him, dreams that Sammy didn’t want anything to do with him anymore, dreams that the mate his father bartered him off to is the yellow-eyed trucker from months ago. Dean gasps awake, tangled in cold, sweat-soaked sheets. Beside him his clock reads that it’s barely past two in the morning. His heart beats a million miles per minute, so fast it hurts.

Dean scents the room and tries to ground himself. The smell of his own sweat, laundry detergent, and the fancy mini shampoo Gabe stocks the bathrooms with meet his nose. Underlying those, he makes out familiar scents: Gabriel and his pup Ollie (It took a couple weeks for Dean to gather that Gabe isn’t mated. He doesn’t ask how Ollie came to be, mostly because he’s afraid of what the answer might be). Behind that, there’s just a little _Cas_.

A seed of comfort plants itself in Dean’s belly. He detangles the sheets and bumbles out of bed, making his way down the stairs. It isn’t until Dean stands in front of Castiel’s bedroom door with his fist poised to knock that he realizes what a stupid idea this is. He and Cas are friends, nothing more. Sure, Cas smells like goddamn Christmas and _maybe_ Dean has gotten off to thoughts of Cas above him, filling him up, fucking him sore.

Crap. Dean turns on his heel, but before he can take three steps away, Cas’ bedroom door swings open.

“Dean?” he says, voice rough.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you. I’ll just –”

“I was only reading. Why do you smell scared?” Cas asks, blunt as ever.

“It’s nothing,” Dean says, “Sorry.”

“If it was nothing then you wouldn’t have come here,” Cas reasons. He opens the door a little wider and says, “Come in.” The words don’t have a hint of alpha-voice in them, but it’s still enough to get Dean to trudge past Cas and into his bedroom.

Dean isn’t prepared for the scent that washes over him to still the nightmare where it stands and chase it completely away. He licks his lips and looks back at Cas, who leans against his bedroom door, now closed. He doesn’t want to sound dumb or puppyish or weak. At the same damn time, Cas smells so dang nice that Dean would love nothing more than to give up and stick his nose in Castiel’s neck.

“I, um,” Dean starts, and swallows the lump in his throat, “Bad dream.”

“Ah,” Castiel says. Without Dean having to ask, he steps forward and pulls Dean against him. It’s a little awkward, Dean being about the same height as Cas (and likely to get taller) while trying to snuffle at his neck. Cas’ fingers come up to stroke the hair on the back of Dean’s head, down to his neck.

“I appreciate it, man,” Dean says, trying to diffuse whatever the hell is going on between him. His voice comes out too soft to find an out and escape back to his bedroom.

“Stay with me,” Castiel says. From any other alpha, it might sound like a command. From Cas, it’s just a suggestion.

But it’s a damn tempting suggestion, which is why instead of refusal Dean’s mouth decides to say, “You sure?”

“Yes,” Cas says. His gruff voice is just another thing that Dean wants to wrap himself up in. It makes him afraid. He doesn’t want to rely on an alpha. Still, he follows when Cas threads their fingers together and pats the right side of his bed. Cas murmurs just as Dean lies back, “I’ll turn out the lights.”

In the dark, with only a dribble of moonlight making a halo around Castiel’s silhouette, Dean is guided into warm alpha arms. He breathes the scent of Cas’ chest in deep and doesn’t even mind when he feels Cas scent his head. It feels right. Maybe it shouldn’t, but it does. Dean never quite understood what people mean when they say that mates smell best to each other, but he think he might know now. In any other place the thought would have scared him. Wrapped up in Cas’ arms, the thought of mates puts a smile on his lips and casts the nightmares away.

**X**

Cas doesn’t bring up their cuddly night together, for which Dean is grateful. He doesn’t talk about it either. It was nice, but it’s over. Or so he thinks until he dreams again about Yellow Eyes and his dad hunting him down and dragging him back home. The dream comes a couple of times every week, and every time, Dean makes his way downstairs and slips into Castiel’s room. Cas doesn’t ask.

So, eventually, Dean does.

“How come you never ask me what happened?” Dean asks. He buries his head against Cas’ collarbones so that he doesn’t have to look Castiel in the eye when he asks it.

“I figured that if you wanted me to know that you would tell me,” Cas says, “I doubt it would do good to force you to discuss something you didn’t want to talk about.”

Dean hums a response, and thinks on it.

“Maybe I do wanna talk.”

“Then go ahead,” Cas says, his breath warm against Dean’s scalp. His hand rubs against Dean’s spine, moves up to his back where he presses his fingers in and massages.

Cas doesn’t egg Dean on further in the intervening minutes. It isn’t that Dean doesn’t think he can talk to Cas, because he knows that he can. He knows that talking to him makes him vulnerable and exposes something from his insides that he would otherwise protect. But when he’s here, tucked up against this weird alpha, he doesn’t think he minds that so much.

“I guess,” Dean starts, and swallows, “I guess it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. My dad didn’t want me to keep going to school after I presented. I didn’t really like school but it pissed me off that he’d take it away from me over something so stupid, so I kept going.”

“Your father seems to be stuck in the past.”

“I guess so, but it’s not like he’s the only one that thinks so. He talked a lot about wanting to look out for me and make sure that I was protected, but before I presented I just did that junk myself, you know? And then nobody thought that I could anymore. It’s just – I know my dad cares about me and all that junk, but I don’t think he knows how he’s supposed to do it.”

“Gabriel and I are familiar with this,” Castiel says, “but that’s a story for another time.”

Dean trails off and wants to ask Cas what he means, but now that he has his run from home on his tongue he wants to spill it out, wants to tell _somebody_ that where he was wasn’t good and he needed to get away. He nuzzles his face against Cas’ chest for a second. It makes him feel better.

“Anyway, I got my heat at school,” Dean says, “and I went to the bathroom to call my dad to come get me. He was pissed, and that was fine. I knew he would be. That’s how he is. But these alpha dicks strut into the bathroom and smell me and they back me into a corner. One of ‘em felt me up and I’m pretty sure he was gonna knot me, but one of the gym teachers broke it up.”

Cas’ hold tightens. It surprises Dean – he knows that they’ve been acting like kind-of-mates after the sun goes down, but he didn’t expect to get hit in the nose with the scent of protective alpha and be bundled up against Cas like he might float away if Cas lets go.

“S’okay,” Dean says, “I was fine.”

“It’s not okay,” Cas replies, low voice even lower – almost a growl.

Maybe it’s instinct that has Dean scooting out of Cas’ arms and pulling him this dumb, protective alpha into his arms instead. He’s never done something like that before, not even after having sex. But he wants Cas to know he’s okay, wants him happy.

“My dad got all pissy with me when he had to pick me up, and Sammy – that’s my brother – tried to help but I ended up getting into it with the old man and he said that I was gonna find an ‘omega-appropriate’ job or whatever and that he’d start looking for a mate for me. So I booked it. Now I’m here. I just dream sometimes that my dad’s gonna come for me and take me away from here.”

“He’d have to go through me first,” Cas says into Dean’s t-shirt, and then lifts his gaze to meet Dean’s eyes, “I’m glad that Bobby found you. Or you found Bobby. So much could have been worse.”

“Well. I got picked up by a different guy first. Didn’t like him. I’m glad I hopped in Bobby’s truck, too.”

Cas narrows his eyes.

“I don’t know his name,” Dean sighs, “He was a douche. He, um. He had me suck him off for the ride. Guess I can’t be too mad about that, since I found Bobby ‘cause of that truck ride and I found here ‘cause of Bobby.”

Cas surges out of Dean’s grip and Dean tumbles onto his back. With his limbs Castiel boxes Dean in and glares, eyes narrowed still. He growls, “You should be furious. No one should be treated like that.”

“All right,” Dean says, “Um. Can you – get off me?”

The expression on Cas’ face goes from furious to guilty in a fraction of a second, and he rolls away. He says, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. You are – you are important to me, Dean Winchester. It seems to bring out my alpha to hear that you have been treated so poorly.”

“It’s cool,” Dean says, even though having Cas above him, so close, sped his heart rate. He’s a little sweaty now, but he can’t tell if it’s out of fear or being turned on by all that alpha crap. His cheeks burn at the thought of the latter. Cas is his friend. His best friend, when he thinks on it. And that best friend has never made any kind of move. Nothing sexual at all. Dean knows plenty of people that use their secondary gender and the scents thereof to calm down their friends and their family, and it’s nothing more than platonic.

Problem is, Dean’s gotten to thinking that maybe he’s never had platonic Cas-feelings.

Dean doesn’t want to dwell on it, so he scoots in closer to Cas and says, “Seriously, it’s all good. I like this, though. I like it a lot.”

That puts a smile on Cas’ face, and makes Dean’s insides feel lighter.

For a long while, they stay there in silence, tangled up in each other’s limbs and noses pressed to each other’s necks. The frantic feeling from Dean’s nightmare dims until it ebbs away to nothing. Basking in the scent of alpha, of _safe_ and _strong_ , Dean’s eyelids begin to droop.

When Castiel turns out the light, Dean nestles deeper into the embrace. He thinks about how his father would give him the _I told you so_ speech if he knew that Dean is lying in the arms of an alpha, feeling protected and whole. Thing is, though, Dean’s started to come around to the idea of this being a thing. Not like a sex thing. Just a friend thing.  A scent thing. That doesn’t make Dean needy or weak.

He’s pretty sure that just makes him human.

**X**

A heat hits him not long later, right on the hinge of July and August. It’s the worst he’s had since the heat that spurred his leaving Lawrence, maybe the worst heat he’s had, period. He wakes up with his sheets soaked and his body drenched in sweat. Cramps claw at his abdomen and the _need_ is just about enough to kill him. He squirms and groans at the sensation of slick making his pajamas stick to his thighs.

Dean should do something to fix it, but he doesn’t want to get up. He doesn’t want to move, just wants an alpha to work him over until he can’t see straight anymore. Probably Cas. But also not that because Dean has never actually had a living, breathing alpha inside of him.

Dean’s dizzy. His breath comes out in short pants.

He doesn’t know how long he lies there, but it’s long enough that he hears footsteps approaching his door on the other side and Gabriel’s voice cursing, “Holy fuck.”

Dean just groans, unwilling to budge from his nest of bedding, no matter how damp and warm they are around him.

“Puppy, you still got the knot I gave you?”

“Yeah,” Dean manages, but his voice is small. He manages only a rasp, and then whines at the end of it because, fuck, this hurts. It’s like nothing that he’s ever felt before and he wants nothing more than to crawl out of his own skin and hide while hormones flush through his body.

Gabe’s sigh makes it through the door. He asks, “Can you grab it?”

“Don’ wanna move,” Dean complains, and burrows further into his shell of sheets and blankets.

“Crap,” Gabe mutters, “Not that I have to tell you to wait here but – stay put. I’ll be right back.”

That’s fine by Dean. He shivers. He hates feeling like this. He hates it not only because a bad heat can do some awful shit to you, but because there’s a general consensus among the western world that he should just suck it up and deal with it. Like they’d still say that if they knew what an omega went through. Dicks.

Way outta left field this _smell_ just smacks Dean in the face, splitting the sensation of heat into two until he doesn’t feel like death, just sticky and fragrant.

“Dean?”

“Um. Hi, Cas,” Dean says. He wiggles out of his blanket pile and sits up to say, “I don’t. Uh. I don’t want –”

“It’s okay,” Cas interrupts, “I’m not going to come in. Gabriel says that your heat is bad. It smells fairly potent. Are you okay?”

“I – I dunno, man. Your smell – it. It kinda helps? I think?”

“Okay. That’s good. I’ll stay right here. I need you to do something for me, though. I need you to find the toy that Gabriel gave to you. Can you do that for me?” The rumble of Cas’ voice is just Cas, no Alpha Voice in there at all. Still, Dean feels compelled to listen, and slides out of bed to stumble toward his bathroom cabinet and retrieve his toy.

“All right,” he says, “I have it. What now?”

“Are you in bed? No? Climb back into bed and make sure you’re comfortable.”

Dean does.

“I’m all good, man,” Dean says.

“Good, good. Strip all the way down. It’ll be easier,” Cas tells him. God, his voice is soothing. It’s like aloe on a sunburn; it’s so nice. Dean’s never wanted to listen to an alpha _just because_ before, but he thinks maybe Cas counts as different because he wouldn’t actually make Dean do anything. If Dean said he didn’t like this and he wanted Cas to go away, he’d do it. It’s crazy that he can say that without a doubt, but there you go.

“How wet are you?”

The matter-of-fact way that Cas asks the question somehow makes it even sexier.

“Um, p-pretty wet,” answers Dean.

“Wet enough to play with your toy?”

“Yeah. I mean. Yes.”

“Spread your legs open for me as wide as you can,” Cas goes on, “Don’t turn your toy on yet. Just ease onto it, all right? Go steady. Start with slow movement, and be gentle with yourself.”

This should be boring. It should be a drag to just sit on a stock-still toy and push and pull it in and out of himself with no speed or variance, just plugging along, thrusting in a pattern. But Cas wants him to do it. Damn it, this was never supposed to happen. Dean wasn’t supposed to actually find an alpha that he likes, whose smell makes him feel like he has a place in this world. He wants to be mad but he can’t be – just thinking of Cas while he fucks his toy is enough to punch a whimper out of him.

“Feel good?” asks Cas.

“Yeah. Really good.”

“That’s what I like to hear. I want you to switch the toy onto the lowest setting now. Don’t speed up, though. Just keep going like you’re doing now.”

The minimal buzz almost sends Dean sailing off of his mattress when he nudges at his prostate. He knows that Cas must have heard him, because tangy alpha arousal curls into the room, blending with just plain old Cas to make something obscene. It makes Dean squirm, but he doesn’t speed up his rhythm. He can feel the build of an orgasm in his belly, hot between his legs and teetering on the edge.

“Up the setting a notch.”

Dean does, and breaks out into a half-relieved, half-tortured sweat.

“How are you feeling? Are you close?”

“Almost, maybe. I think,” Dean says, “Usually I just go to town and come quick. This is weird.”

“Good weird or bad weird?” asks Cas.

“Good weird,” Dean assures him.

“Excellent. Now I want you to roll your body into the movement of your hand. I want you to fuck yourself down on that knot, Dean.”

“ _Shit._ ”

All at once the build becomes his body singing, tingling from limb to limb. It takes no more than three pushes back onto the toy to lose it, and lose it hard. Dean comes over his abdomen with a broken, satisfied noise. It goes on forever – this may be the best damn orgasm he’s ever had in his life.

Dean is still floating when Cas’ voice breaks through the haze and asks, “How was that?”

“Mmazing,” Dean slurs.

“Do you want me to be here again when your next wave hits?” asks Cas.

“Yeeeah,” Dean says, melting back into his blankets, a goofy smile on his face.

“All right. I’m going to send Gabriel in in a few to bring you some food and water. You need to hydrate especially, but I want you to eat everything that he brings you. Your heat will be easier if you take care of yourself.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean mocks, “But uh. Seriously. Thanks Cas.”

“Of course, Dean.”

The words leave Dean with a lingering sense of security, even when Gabe lets himself in with a tray of food and has a laugh at Dean’s expense over his smell and his nakedness. Sure, Dean may reek of heat, but he’s pretty sure he smells like happy omega, too.

And he is, y’know. Happy.

**X**

Dean becomes so accustomed to the passing of time at the Snoozing Squirrel that he hardly notices the months that have flown by until they hit the holidays. Unlike high schools and offices, the B&B stays open through both Thanksgiving and Christmas, both of which are celebrated with a delicious meal courtesy of Benny. At first Dean thought that maybe it would feel wrong to have a holiday without Sammy – the first holiday he’s had without his brother since before Sam was even born.

But while Dean does miss his brother, nothing seems out of place. It’s a strange feeling. He didn’t realize that he spent so much time at home fruitlessly being a square peg trying to fit into a round hole, but there it is.

On Thanksgiving, Dean helps Benny in the kitchen. Few guests are at the inn this particular November, but the dinner is still the biggest Thanksgiving dinner that Dean has ever been to. Gabriel and Cas push together the round tables of the dining room, creating one long caterpillar of space for turkey and stuffing, potatoes and cranberry salad – but most importantly, _pie_. Dean unapologetically eats at least a quarter of both an apple pie and a pumpkin pie.

So yeah. He feels different. Hell, Dean even looks different when he faces his reflection in the mirror. His hair is longer, and it’s lighter from being out in the sun. He’s put on some weight and muscle tone from eating well and working hard, and he’s also grown a solid couple of inches. Dean looks…well, actually happy. How about that. It’s not even the temporary kind of happy that comes from watching the new Dr. Sexy episodes, or the satisfaction after getting handsy with himself.

Dean thinks this might be contentment. Or something like it. He can’t quite describe what’s going on, really, just knows that everyone here is a square peg and since everyplace else is full of round holes, they made their own place.

On Christmas, Dean wakes up to gleeful shrieking and Ollie running up and down the hallway.

(“Jesus Christ, kiddo, dad’s way too out of shape to do this. Get back here – and don’t touch th – aw, hell. Whatever. Morning, Dean. Don’t step on the shattered ceramic cat.”)

Benny makes a breakfast to sit on the stomach and clog up arteries, with bacon and pancakes and hot cocoa and all the best things. They don’t linger to enjoy it too long, however, because Ollie and the pups of a vacationing family are eager to get to the part with the presents.

Dean gets so caught up in watching excited pups rummaging around in wrapping paper and ribbon that he almost forgets that he bought some of his own stuff to give, too. He waits until Ollie and the other pups are outside playing with a brand new sled to hand Cas his gift, and Gabe his, and Benny too.

None of the gifts are much. He mumbles as much, but Cas hushes him with a squinty-face and Dean rolls his eyes.

“I love it,” Cas says, when he peels back the wrappings.

“It’s just a book,” mutters Dean. He feels his face heat.

“It’s wonderful, Dean. Thank you.”

“Yeah, puppy, you did good,” Gabe says, holding up his cupcake-making kit.

Dean only got Benny one fancy kitchen knife, but it puts a smile on the guy’s face and suddenly it’s hugs all around.

And then Cas catches him underneath the archway between the café and lobby, and kisses Dean under mistletoe. His palms cup Dean’s face on either side to draw him near. His lips are sticky and he tastes like peppermint, both from crunching down candy canes the entire morning. At first surprise prevents Dean from moving, but he snaps back fast and kisses Cas too, hard.

When they part, Dean just leans his head on Cas’ shoulder and scents him, loose-limbed and smiling.

After minutes of standing underneath the mistletoe, Cas says, “I would be remiss if we took this much further before you’re of age, but, ah,” – Cas colors and shuffles in a way that Dean has never seen before – “I’d like to mate you.”

In the marrow of Dean’s bones, he knows and has known since the beginning that Cas is it. The one. The guy. The alpha for Dean. All that stuff that romance books wax poetic about, pretty much. It still surprises him to hear the words, though. Maybe Dean wasn’t sure that Cas would want him back, even with all signs pointing to yes.

Cas smells nervous.

Dean just laughs and pulls back. He turns and wiggles his ass – with a wink, he says, “Waitin’ ‘til we’re matin’!” And laughs harder when Cas growls and makes a dive forward to grab at his sweet behind.

Dean leads Cas on a chase up the stairs.

(But he’ll let Cas win.)

✘

** Part II **

With surprising ease, the months soon slip into a year. Dean turns seventeen and Cas reaches twenty six shortly thereafter. Before either of them know it, in the blink of an eye, Dean is eighteen. The changing of the seasons outside Dean’s bedroom window seemed so gradual until now, when it hits Dean like a brick wall that he’s legally no longer a kid and soon enough he’ll have been in Apple Springs two years.

Two entire years of freedom, without his dad but also without Sammy, instead with Cas and Gabriel and Benny.

Somewhere along the way, Dean’s belongings migrate one by one to the floor below until he wakes up one morning and realizes that he lives in Castiel’s room. With Cas. His mate. He wakes up every morning with his nose buried in a warm neck and his dick at an unfortunate half-mast.

Cas still hasn’t sealed their mating, even though Dean is well past eighteen now. That doesn’t mean that they haven’t gotten up to other shenanigans – hell, Dean’s known the feeling of Cas’ fingers inside him since before he even made it to seventeen (The span between the kiss at Christmas and Dean’s birthday was a hell of a month).

Dean shifts up in bed and glances at the clock on Cas’ side of the bed. All he can see of his mate is the top of his head, dark hair sticking up haphazardly from the edge of the blankets. It’s past nine already, which means Dean’ll have to be up and about for daily maintenance soon. Cas should really get up too, but he’s about as easy to wake up as a bear is from hibernation.

So, Dean slips out of bed and pads barefoot from their bedroom. He waves to one of the guests as he passes through the café and tucks himself behind the barista station, where Gabe is hard at work making mostly-sugar espresso experiments.

“Mornin’, puppy,” Gabriel hums.

Dean rolls his eyes.

“Time to rouse the beast?” Gabe asks.

“Mmhmm,” is Dean’s reply. He whips up something quick and tasty to appease Cas with. He narrowly avoids a collision with Ollie, who’s running half-naked toward his father.

“Sorry Uncle Dean!” exclaims Ollie.

“Watch your back, kiddo,” Dean says back, and Ollie sticks out his tongue.

When Dean returns to the bedroom, Cas hasn’t moved an inch from his nesting place in the warmth of the blankets. And when Dean grips Cas’ shoulder and gives him a shake, Castiel lets out a long, annoyed groan. The scent of sleepy, grumpy alpha puts a smile on Dean’s lips. He shakes Cas again and says, “C’mon sleepyhead. I brought you some joe.”

“Mhrr,” Cas groans in response.

Dean sighs and decides to employ the only wake-up call better than a strong cup of coffee: he climbs onto the bed and deposits himself on top of Cas. Underneath him, his alpha stiffens, but he doesn’t budge otherwise or make another noise.

So, Dean rolls his hips gently, rubbing up against his alpha in slow, gentle movements. It’s enough to get Cas’ attention but not to satisfy him. Cas rolls onto his back and with a jerk he flips Dean so that he’s belly-down on the mattress with Cas above him, limbs boxing him in.

“Good morning to you too,” says Dean, only to receive a nip to the back of his neck as a response.

Cas thrusts himself against Dean’s ass, pressing his erection right where Dean wants it to be but not quite. It teases slick from him and makes him whine, canting back for more friction. He says, “C’mon, Cas, _please_.”

Dean expects to be denied, to be told that the time isn’t yet right, but Cas just lets out a low growl and quickens the pace of his movement. His breath is quick and hot against Dean’s throat, his scent a cloud of happy alpha pheromones.

“You gonna do it?” Dean asks, egging him on, “You gonna knot me and mark me up? Gonna make me yours?”

“Damn it,” Cas mutters, and he flips Dean again so that he can kiss him. His lips are chapped and the kiss is rough. It’s perfect. Dean can’t help but lean into the touch with all his energy, kissing back with equal excitement. He knows what he smells like right now. It’s happy omega, basking in the glow of his happy alpha, who despite his morning breath is charming as ever and shit, Dean really wants him.

“Please,” Dean says again.

Something about that particular _please_ must do it for Cas. He sits all the way up, straddling Dean, and tugs off his t-shirt. He tells Dean emphatically, “You are wearing a lot of clothes.”

Except then Dean isn’t wearing a lot of clothes, because Cas is ripping them all off of him, throwing Dean’s Pink Floyd shirt across the room somewhere, and discarding the pajamas in another direction. All too quickly Dean is naked below his alpha, cock swollen up with need and resting against his belly. He’s pretty content with this turn of events, except:

“Hey, how come _your_ pants are still on?”

“That is a damn good question,” Cas says, and removes himself from Dean’s arms just long enough to shimmy from the rest of his clothing. Dean has seen Cas naked before plenty of times, but every time he gets to do it he’s always pleased as punch all over again. Cas has got a tan, runner-lithe body with subtle muscle and broad shoulders, and hip bones that make a fucking gorgeous V pointing down to his cock where it’s hanging heavy between his legs. New slick rushes from Dean’s body and Cas makes another sound, something alpha-y and possessive, before he yanks Dean’s legs up and spreads them wide open.

Dean lets out a yip of surprise when Cas buries his face in between his legs and starts to lap at his hole, licking up slick. He presses his tongue inside Dean’s body and Dean melts, throwing his head back against the pillow and letting out a long moan.

“Fuck,” he says, “Christ, that feels so good. But I’m – I need more. Please. Please, Cas. I want you already.”

Cas lifts his head from the apex of Dean’s legs and flashes a wicked grin. He says, “You’ll have me.”

“Seriously?” Dean asks, “’Cause I don’t know if I can handle any tricks.”

Cas cocks a brow as he lets Dean’s legs fall lower. He grips his dick in one hand and asks, “Can you handle this?”

A sputter of laughter escapes Dean before he can help it. He pulls Cas close to him and Cas goes, letting Dean mold him into position. Dean’s pretty sure that there’s no other alpha on the planet so pliant and willing to let an omega have his way. Dean peppers kisses over Cas’ face and neck and chest as he moves them together, guiding Cas to sit up against the headboard of their bed.

Dean doesn’t waste time on ceremony. He takes Cas’ cock in his fist and presses down, his eyes rolling closed as he takes his mate in inch by inch. It’s a stretch, but it feels like everything that Dean has wanted. When Dean opens his eyes, he opens them to Cas watching him carefully with lust-blown eyes. The self-control the guy’s got is actually…well, pretty dang impressive, considering he’s got his omega sitting on his dick for the first time.

“Are you all right?” Cas asks, voice strained.

All that Dean can manage to that is a goofy grin, a sloppy kiss, and a hum of, “M’good.” He braces himself with hands planted on Cas’ broad shoulders, rocking back experimentally. It’s nice, but Dean wants more. He lifts his body then, and spears himself back down on Cas’ cock. A shockwave of pleasure pierces through him and he groans, muffling the noise into Cas’ sweat-damp shoulder.

And Cas lets Dean keep control. He just kisses and whines and groans as Dean rides him at a steady pace, pleased beyond measure at the sensation of their bodies being connected. He didn’t know that it could be like this. Shit, if he’d known sex as an omega would feel this nice he probably would have let himself have some more fun that he did before he got the hell outta dodge.

When Cas’ knot starts to catch, he wrangles Dean in for a tighter embrace, kissing Dean. It’s tender, actually. You wouldn’t catch Dean saying out loud how much he enjoys being doted on by a sappy alpha, but hell, he knows it’s true.

Knowing that he’s loved kind of – well. He just. Dean almost doesn’t know what to do with that, other than know that it lights him up from the inside out and that suddenly a family doesn’t seem like a terrible idea. Dean’s always been good with pups. He’s good with Ollie. Even Gabe says so, and Gabe thinks everyone’s an idiot.

Castiel comes inside Dean with a force. The orgasm takes Cas by surprise; he jerks his hips up and nails Dean in the sweet spot in his surprise. Dean moans low in his throat and reaches down to take his own cock in hand, only to be swatted away by his alpha, who takes him in his hands like he’s a treasure. Cas’ palms are smooth, fingers nice and long. He explores touching Dean for a while, feeling out the places that Dean likes to be touched best.

“Shit,” Dean says when he comes, making a sticky mess between them on both of their bare chests.

Cas smiles and pecks a kiss to the center of Dean’s forehead before he remarks, “It seems like Gabriel will have to man the barista for a little longer.”

A surprised burst of laughter breaks from Dean’s lips. He lets his head flop onto Cas’ shoulder and says, “Seems like. How long do you think it’ll take for your knot to go down?”

Cas makes a noise of consideration, “It might be a while this time. Because, ah. You know. You’re my mate and this is our first venture into penetrative sex –”

“Not a good enough reason to use the word penetrate,” Dean chuckles.

“I said _penetrative_ ,” Cas responds, affronted.

“My bad. That’s totally different.”

“You’re sassing me.”

“ _You’re_ sassing _me_ ,” Dean retorts.

Instead of bothering to reply, Cas kisses Dean, effectively shutting him up. When they break to breathe, Cas says, “We should do this again sometime.”

It takes a second for Dean to register that Cas is teasing him, long enough that Cas adds, “I’m being facetious.”

“I got that, but thanks, Captain Obvious,” Dean says.

Cas rolls his eyes and gathers Dean up against him. The smell of sex permeates the air, thick and heady. Any other time Dean might have wrinkled his noise but he likes it when it’s his and Cas’ scents combined. They smell nice together. It’s meant to be, or so he would say if he were more sentimental. At least, out loud sentimental.

“Hey Cas?” Dean ventures, voice soft.

Cas shifts so that some space sits between them and blinks.

Dean doesn’t say anything else, just bares his neck. Cas doesn’t have to say anything more, either. He just leans forward and snuffles out the best place for a mating mark, settling eventually on a spot low on Dean’s throat, near his shoulder. When Cas sinks his teeth into Dean’s skin, it hurts, but it feels right. It does feel like something is fundamentally different between them.

Now there’s no turning back.

Cas is his mate. This is for the rest of their lives. Dean hasn’t ever had anything that permanent before.

Dean finds, as Cas leans to bare his own throat, that instead of being afraid of the permanence, it settles around him like a blanket. Warm. Warm, and comforting.

Dean bites down and marks Cas as his own.

✘

** Part III **

Sam’s good with computers. He always has been, and even though his dad wants (wanted?) him to go into a field that’s more “alpha appropriate”, Sam’s sticking with programming.

Backdoor benefit of being handy with code and electronic doodads: He knows where Dean is. Sam started his search on websites designed to find people, but for the most part, Dean fell off the grid as soon as he ran away at sixteen. It’s been six years since then and the absence of his brother still stings. Not that Sam blames Dean for leaving – he’s pretty sure that if he’d been an omega himself that he’d have booked it too.

Sam just wishes that Dean could have left some kind of note, or sent some kind of message, anything to let Sam know that he’s okay. But no, Sam had to find that out for himself.

Finally, just weeks before his graduation last month, his computer pinged with a result. He shouldn’t have been surprised that it came from some online gaming website. As soon as Sam dug further into the game, some fantasy game, he knew for sure the Dean Winchester playing a paladin was his Dean.

“Dean M Winchester

Gender: M-O

Joined: 2-12

Location: Apple Springs, Colorado

Interests: fixing crap, cooking good food, bossin around the mate ;D & kicking your asses”

That was it. Succinct, but everything that Sam needs to know. He worries about the last part, though. When Dean left he’d been adamant that a mate wasn’t what he wanted. Did that hold up? Was this person something that Dean did want, or did he run into trouble when he took off? The lighthearted tone of it all seems to suggest the former, but Sam won’t trust a damn thing until he sees his brother in the flesh.

Sam’s nerves go aflame when he pulls the Impala into the parking lot of The Snoozing Squirrel Bed & Breakfast. The outside looks unassuming and homey enough. Still, it’s kind of weird that Dean ended up here and not some greasy garage in a Podunk town in the middle of nowhere. This is a little – omega flick. Sam double and triple checked that he had the IP address tracked down to the right place, and this is it.

Sam steels himself with a breath. He has his junk packed in the back of the car and leaves it there for the time being, opting to head into this battlefield with nothing but the clothes on his back and his car keys.

He pushes open the door to the B&B.

The first thing that catches Sam’s attention is a smell. It’s strong, and it’s really awesome. Holy shit. Like amazing good? Like –

“Heya!”

An omega pokes his head out from the frame of the archway to Sam’s right. He’s short and a little older, maybe in his thirties. And damn, he’s the one that smells so good. The omega has about the same reaction that Sam does. He stills and cocks his head, looking him up and down with a sly half-smile on his face.

“Nice,” he says.

“U-Uh,” says Sam, “Thank you?”

“You’re welcome,” he says, “How long will you be staying with us? I promise we’ll tend to your _every_ need.”

Before Sam has a chance to find where the hell his brain went and say something back, a deep voice calls from behind the omega – “Gabriel, are you flirting with a guest before they’ve even had the chance to check in?”

“Me?” the omega, Gabriel, apparently, “I would never.”

That’s when the alpha steps into the lobby. He’s tall-ish, not as tall as Sam, but certainly at least a solid six feet. To any other alpha, Sam wouldn’t pay attention. But this alpha –

This alpha reeks of _Dean_.

“You,” Sam growls out, before he can stop himself, “WHERE’S MY BROTHER?”

Alpha takes over before Sam’s logic can. He dives forward and tackles the alpha to the ground. A snarl tears from his throat as he demands, “What did you do with Dean? Where is he? Take me to him or I swear on my life I will make you regret –”

Just as quickly as Sam is on the floor with the mystery alpha pinned underneath him, he’s on his ass feet away. There’s another between them, tall and solid, sweet-smelling like goddamned _Christmas_  and oh, shit, that’s a pregnant omega. Not just any omega, either – that’s Dean.

“Dean!” he exclaims, scrambling up, “You’re okay. Are you okay? Who are these people? Did they hurt you?”

“Jesus frickin’ Christ, Sammy,” Dean says. His voice is deeper than Sam remembers. Dean sighs and runs a hand through his hair before he continues, “Nobody hurt anybody. That’s my mate you knocked on his ass and I promise, I wouldn’t let myself get mated to some Joe Schmoe off the fucking street.”

“Does he – is this his inn?”

“Nope,” Gabriel pipes up, looking collected for somebody that just had two alphas ready to fight on the floor in front of him, “The ol’ place is mine. Cassie’s just my coffee bitch.”

“I am not your coffee bitch,” the alpha protests.

“Coffee lackey?” suggests Dean.

“I’m nobody’s lackey. If we’re going to have this conversation one more damn time –”

“I got it,” Gabriel snaps his fingers, “Coffee cohort.”

“That’s not bad, I suppose,” concedes the alpha.

“ _Anyhoo_ ,” Dean says, “You’ve met my mate. His name’s Cas. Er, Castiel, actually, but I’m not sure anyone actually calls him that. And that’s his older brother Gabe. He’s an asshole.”

“Ass _clown_ , thank you very much,” Gabriel says. Sam can’t help but chuckle at that, and Gabriel’s lips slide into a slow smile. He eyes Sam again, holding back a little more than before, and asks, “So, you stickin’ around, sugar?”

“Gabe, don’t hit on my brother.”

“Why not? He’s cute.”

Sam asks, “Cute like attractive cute or cute like puppy cute?”

Dean looks affronted at Sam being receptive to Gabriel’s anvil-subtle hints that he likes Sam. He can’t manage a word before Gabriel replies, “Definitely sexy cute. Kid, I would climb you like a freaking sequoia. Don’t let the stick up your brother’s butthole stop us.”

And that’s a proposition far more blatant than Sam has ever experienced. He feels the blood rush to his face, and clears his throat, brows twitching before he directs his eyes to the ground. Sam starts to sense that he may be trapped in an omega flick based upon what he’s found here – Dean with a bun in the oven, and an omega that smells so good he could just be Sam’s mate. And he happens to be the brother of Sam’s own brother’s mate. Putting it in those terms makes it sound vaguely incestuous, but even that can’t put Sam off the aroma of the dude.

“All right, I’ve had it with your snark,” Dean says, “Sammy, you look like you could use a pick me up. You hungry? Need coffee or anything? Cas is a coffee wizard.”

Cas interrupts to say, “I like coffee wizard better than coffee cohort.”

“Um,” Sam says, “I guess coffee would be good for now. Should I grab my stuff out of the Impala?”

“The Impala?” echoes Dean.

Eagerly, Dean follows behind Sam to the lot of the B&B. His eyes light up like he’s a pup with a new toy, and he runs his hands over the hood. Sam rounds to the trunk of the car to gather his belongings and Dean beams at him. He says, “Just like I remember her.”

“Yeah,” Sam replies absently, slinging his duffel over his shoulder, “I kinda taught myself how to take care of her, ‘cause I knew that no matter what, you’d want the Impala taken care of, you know?”

Dean doesn’t say anything to that and instead averts his eyes. There are a million things that Sam wants to say to his brother in that moment, but none of them float to the surface and he ends up saying nothing at all. He lets the party show him to a room on the second floor, one that Dean says he stayed in when he first got here and that it kind of still smells like so he thinks Sam’ll like that one best.

He’s right.

The first thing that Sam notices isn’t the hideous armchair or the absurd décor, but the stale, however comforting, smell of Dean. It’s the residue that gets left behind when somebody’s lived in a place for a long time, like moving into a house that belonged to a different family for years. There are fresher smells of cleaner and one of those oil diffusers that are always just a little too much.

“Hey,” Dean says, getting Sam’s attention, “So I’m gonna bring you up a coffee and then I’ll let you get settled in, okay? You look like you could use a nap.”

“Probably,” Sam responds at the end of a gentle smile.

Dean smiles back and adds, “I’m, uh. It’s really good to see you, Sammy. I’m really happy you’re here.”

“Me too,” says Sam, “I missed you.”

Dean laughs and says, “All right, enough omega flick moments. I’ll be back in a sec.”

Sure enough, as Sam unpacks his clothes and tucks them into the drawers in the room, Dean returns with some kind of fragrant latte. The mug warms the palms of Sam’s hands when Dean passes it over, and Sam thanks him. The drink is good. Sam thinks that if he gets a chance that he’ll tell Cas that he may actually be a coffee wizard.

By the time that Sam wakes from his post-roadtrip nap, it’s dark outside the window. He gives himself a once-over in the bathroom mirror, running his fingers through his hair and zipping a hoodie on over his t-shirt.

The second that he steps downstairs, though, he makes a collision with somebody small. The pup looks up and says, “Oops,” and then, “You’re really tall. Do you drink your milk? Daddy says that milk makes you taller.”

“Daddy says you need to give him back his ring or you’re getting a time-out.”

Sam turns and sees Gabriel.

“I don’t have it.”

“I know you do,” Gabriel says, “Uncle Dean says you were playing pirates and don’t think I don’t know you get into my stuff when you do,” he then glances up and adds with a sweep of his hand, “Sam, this is my spawn, Ollie. Spawn, this is your Uncle Dean’s brother. So. Uncle Sam.”

Ollie narrows his eyes up at Sam and says, “Does that mean you’ll play pirates with me too? Uncle Dean always wants to be the good guys but I’m the good guys.”

Sam’s lips quirk up on one side. He kneels down to Ollie’s height (approximately) and answers, “Of course I’ll play the bad guys for you. But you should probably give your dad his ring back, ‘cause I’m pretty sure the good guys don’t steal stuff.”

That has Ollie thinking, a long pause before he says, “O _-kay_.” The pup opens his sweaty hand and holds it out toward Sam. In the center of his palm sits a high school class ring. Sam picks it up and turns it in his hand. A honey-colored square stone sits at the top. On one side are the comedy and tragedy masks. On the other…farm animals?

Sam hands the ring back to Gabriel and asks, “Why are there farm animals on your class ring?”

“Long story short, it’s supposed to be for ‘livestock management’, but I’m gonna be real; I just wanted a sheep on my ring.”

“Why?”

Gabriel shrugs.

“Can I go?” asks Ollie, apparently impatient at the ‘adults talking’ situation.

“Go ahead and _Ollie out_ ,” Gabe says.

Ollie replies with an exaggerated roll of his eyes, and nothing else.

As soon as Ollie leaves the room, Gabriel says, “So, you gonna ask, or what?”

Sam makes a face before he catches on and says, “Oh, you mean your pup?” It’s glaringly obvious that Gabriel isn’t mated. No bite, no smell, nada. That leaves a couple options for how Ollie came to be, and Sam knows all of them get omegas ostracized by conservative folk. Sam swallows the knot in his throat and goes on, “He’s cute. And I’m not gonna ask about crap that isn’t my business. If you wanna tell me, that’s fine. If not, that’s cool too.”

A brief flicker of surprise crosses Gabriel’s face as he tucks his class ring into the pocket of his jeans. He scratches the back of his neck and says, “Jeez. Sexy and not an asshole. You sure you’re a real person?”

Sam glances down at himself and says, “Last time I checked, yeah.”

They both laugh, and at the cry of Sam’s stomach Gabriel says, “Whoa, we should feed you, huh? Everyone’s kinda gotten the goods and taken off, but Cas is helping Benny clean up the kitchen and we set aside some leftovers for you.”

In the dining room, Sam finds Dean relaxing in a chair with his hands behind his head and his legs sprawled out in front of them. His t-shirt stretches across the generous swell of his belly. When Sam parks himself across from Dean (and Gabriel shuffles off to reheat some dinner for him), he asks, “How far along are you?”

“Like almost four months.”

“Dude, what? You’re huge.”

“Hey, fuck you,” Dean says, “I am carrying new life into this world. I am fucking glowing, you bastard.”

Sam shakes his head and snorts.

“But, uh,” Dean says, “Doc says we got a whole brood brewing up in there. Don’t know how me n’ Cas are gonna handle three pups at once, and also I really don’t want to shove out that many pups at one time, but I’m still kinda stoked.”

“Three?” echoes Sam.

“Apparently multiples run in the family. Cas conveniently didn’t mention that he has a twin.”

“Seriously? How did that not come up?”

“Cas and Gabe are kind of estranged from their folks,” answers Dean, “They don’t actually talk much about it. From what I’ve gathered, they didn’t like Cas getting a degree in literature and they booted Gabe out as soon as they found out he was knocked up. Douchebags. But it’s not all bad. They have each other and all that sappy stuff. Everything turned out okay for everybody.”

As Dean scratches his swollen belly, Sam can’t help but smile again. He doesn’t know a lot about this Dean yet, this adult Dean. There’s a huge difference between sixteen and twenty two. Hell, there’s a huge difference between sixteen and eighteen. It’s a time when the cogs and inner workings of the world become clearer, and other things blur from black and white into pretty shades of gray.

Sam’s excited. He’s excited about this B&B and its owner, and he’s excited about getting to know older-Dean, and meeting the nieces and/or nephews that are on their way into the world. He didn’t know what he was going to find when he came here, but Sam knows now that he likes it a hell of a lot.

 


End file.
